


cut the body loose

by birdcagereligion (ckasjfbfksbj)



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Canon, Slow Burn, i guess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:46:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22475845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ckasjfbfksbj/pseuds/birdcagereligion
Summary: it wasn't a love storyit was a ghost story(or, a life told in snapshots)
Relationships: (eventually), Richard Gecko/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 4





	1. shattered into ash

**Author's Note:**

> Gonna preface this by saying this is my first fic in 7+ years so I'm kinda rusty. This is also a rough 2nd draft of the original fic of which all 100k+ was lost in the Great Phone Crash of '17 (rip in peace)
> 
> edit: im actually working on rewriting all 5 chapters since ive got nothing but time rn, so heres to the 3rd and hopefully final draft of the first chapter! updated on 4/2/20

From the moment Richie pulls his brother out of his bed and past the quickly growing inferno in the living room, Seth futilely fights him to get to their dad. But Richie doesn’t pause in his escape attempt, holding onto Seth tightly enough to leave bruises with one hand, burning the palm of the other on the metal knob on the front door as he struggles to get it to turn in the increasing heat of the room. Even after they spot Ray crawling towards them across the floor, his body engulfed in flames, a lost cause if ever Richie had seen one, Seth still tries to reach out for him, to help him somehow. 

Before he can, the door gives in, slamming open and hitting the wall with an audible crash as oxygen rushes into the room, fueling the flames. Richie grabs his brother around the waist and lifts him off the ground, sweeping him out the now open front door just as the fire roars to life behind, following them out the door, getting so close that it singes the hair on the back of his neck.

On the lawn, free of the searing heat, Richie keeps his grip on Seth, holds him tightly against his chest while he struggles to escape back into the wall of fire that led into the living room. Faintly, over the roar of the flames, Richie can hear pained screaming, growing louder and louder, until it crescendos, one final agonized howl, the sound echoing through the still midnight air. Silence falls over them, heavy and static, and Seth falls limp in his arms, all of the fight leaving his body in a single breath, the sudden dead weight of him dragging them both to the ground.

Richie doesn’t hear the sirens, doesn’t even see the lights, too transfixed by the flames pouring out of the windows, reaching up into the sky, not unlike Seth had reached for their dad, like it was the last chance he would ever have and he’d be damned if he’d didn’t at least try. It's not until one of the paramedics tries to pull Seth from his arms that he notices the cavalry had arrived. He doesn’t let up his grip and after a while, one of the medics crouches down next to them on the grass. The man watches them steadily and Richie watches him back, stares at him unblinking until he breaks, clearing his throat and looking away. After a beat, he says, voice cigarette rough, “Look kid, I ain’t got all night. Let me patch you two up so we can all get the hell out of here.”

Richie complies begrudgingly, releasing his grip on Seth just enough for the man to take his blistering hand. While the medic cleans and bandages Richie’s burnt palm, he watches the firemen attempt to battle the inferno that had almost fully engulfed the house.

Seth starts to cry when the medic moves on to him, his hands shaking so badly that the man can’t get the blood pressure cuff on him. Richie tears his gaze away from the fire and focuses his attention on his brother, taking his hand firmly, holding him steady enough that the medic can get his blood pressure.

Without a word, the medic walks away, clearly finished with them. Not even a minute later, a tall man steps in front of them, taking the medics place. Richie recognizes the navy blue uniform pants and looks up to see a young police officer staring down at them, a short, thin woman standing next to him, with a smile that was too big to be genuine and hair so blonde it hurt Richie's eyes to look at her.

The cop asks them some basic questions. _Was there anyone else home? Did you notice anything out of the ordinary tonight? Does your father have a history of alcohol abuse? Does he smoke?_

Having already practiced his responses Richie answers for them both. _Yes. No. Yes. Yes._

After the officer asks his final question he passes them off to the woman, who he introduces as Susan, their new social worker before walking away without another word just like the medic before him.

Susan ushers them into the back of her car, driving away quickly, rambling all the while in a sickly sweet voice about the home they were going to. “Lucky for you two, it's real close to your uncle's place, practically next door!” She laughs, the sound bubbly, bouncing around the inside of the car. “It’ll only be for a few days, maybe less. Just until your uncle can get back into town..”

Her voice makes his teeth hurt, so he stops listening to her. He twists back in his seat and watches through the rear window as the flames slowly start to die out. He isn’t ready to leave, not yet, not until he knows for sure. He wants to know without a doubt that they’re safe, that Seth is safe, that they’re finally free. He wants to see what’s left of Ray and spit on his ashes, he wants to sweep up the pieces of him and throw them down a well, just in case he tries to Frankenstein himself back together again, his rotting corpse coming back for his revenge.

As the house grows more distant, Susan's voice filters back in, “That uncle of yours is sure a hard one to get a hold of. Must be an important man. You boys should be counting your lucky stars you’ve got someone like that to look out for you. Not everyone gets that.”

Richie finds himself hating this woman quickly and fiercely. How could she sit there and smile at them like she hadn’t whisked them away from the smoldering remains of their lives? Like they were just two normal kids? How dare she call them _lucky_ ? She should be crying, sobbing, wrapping them into her arms and whispering soothing words into their hair. _Your dads in a better place,_ she’s supposed to say even if he isn’t, not ask what their favorite animals are or what cartoons they like to watch. That’s how it always happens on TV. Why isn’t she sad or at least pretending to be? But the same could be asked of him, who sat twisted in his seat, watching what was left of his house crumble to dust before his own dry eyes.

  
  


-

Eddie’s lived in the same tiny ramshackle house for as long as Richie can remember. It’s always been the one constant in their lives. Ray moved them around a lot, especially after he stopped working, dodging angry landlords and eviction notices all over KC, dumping them off on Eddie’s doorstep until he could find another sap willing to rent to him, which started getting harder near the end.

So most of his memories were somewhere on the property. Sitting on the warped tile of the kitchen floor watching his mom and Eddie laugh with each other over steaming mugs. Holding Seth's tiny, sticky hand and walking with him through the shoulder-high grass in the yard, pretending that they were Lewis and Clark mapping the uncharted wilds of America. Mom, her hair almost blue in the sunlight, singing softly as she painstakingly sewed, Seth cooing in a cot next to them. Eddie teaching him how to throw a knife against the side of the perpetually half-built shed in the backyard, how to find the center of gravity and use it to his advantage. He knows the place better than he knows himself, from the scratches Peaches left on the fence in the backyard to the bloodstain on the front door where Eddie had accidentally hit Richie in the face with it when he was a baby.

Being at Eddie’s was the closest thing him or Seth ever got to being normal, let alone happy. Eddie would take them out to the movies or to the arcade in town. He bought them new clothes that he let them pick out for themselves. And every single night he would tuck them into bed.

The last time they’d stayed with him he took them to Graceland for Seth’s birthday. He made himself sick eating fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches and it’s evident in the picture Eddie still has hanging above his fireplace. The three of them holding their best Elvis pose in front of the mansion, Seth’s face a subtle shade of green behind his wide grin, just moments before he blew chunks all over the sidewalk and they were escorted off the premises.

Last summer, Ray found a new place and a new job, and he decided that he wanted the boys to stay home. That was that, no more being dumped on Eddie’s doorstep, no more summer visits, no more almost happiness. Eddie still visited, at least at first, but when he did he would fight with Ray and eventually, he resorted to phone calls. The social worker was right when she said he’s a busy man, he’s always out of town on some kind of business, mailing them expensive presents that Ray took from them and turned for a profit, and calling with stories that Richie and Seth both knew were straight out of the movies.

“We’re here!” Susan chirps from the front seat, her shrill voice pulling Richie from his thoughts. He glances out of the windshield and sure enough, the house sits in front of them at the end of a very long dirt road. “Just think about all of these new friends that you get to meet! Aren’t you two excited? I sure would be!”

As they get closer, Richie can start to see the house in more detail. At one point, it must have been painted a dark red but over the years the color had faded and bleed, now it was a burnt rust, like a car that had been left to dissolve in the elements. The house itself is tall, so tall that a small slant of light peeking out over the roof is the only evidence of the slowly rising sun behind it. Two down curving windows on the top floor, paired with the large gaping porch giving it the image of an eerie grimacing face. The front yard is permanently cast in shadow, a wide line the size of the house visible on the front lawn, the grass fading from living to dying, green to brown.

Richie's first thought as the house comes fully into view is that it looks angry. Like it’s seen many terrible things pass through its doors, carrying the weight of all of those horrors in its foundation, and it did not wish to carry their tragedy as well. He knows it the way he knows most things, intrinsically, without question, from a deep, dark part of him that he didn’t like to think about.

Susan parks the car and steps out quickly. Richie sees his chance, whispering his brothers’ name, the word echoing through the blessed silence of the car, trying to get his attention, but when he moves to continue, to ask him, _can you see the house watching us? I think it can smell us, I think it knows._ The words get stuck in his throat, tiny claws digging into his larynx, fighting him on their way out. Even if he could manage to get the words out it wouldn’t matter, he can tell that Seth isn’t listening anyway. He’s still crying, still staring out of his window and gripping the quilt around him so tightly Richie worries that he might rip it. His body might be here, but his mind isn’t, a feeling Richie knows all too well, so he lets it go, at least for now.

It’s not until Susan pulls them from the car and over the line of living-dead grass that Richie starts to feel sick, his stomach revolting against him with every movement. The long path leading to the stairs is broken in places, edges of chipped concrete threatening to catch the sides of his singed sneakers as he steps over them. He wants nothing more than to turn heel and run as fast and as far as he can from this horrible place, dragging Seth behind him the whole way, but he knows that won’t accomplish anything. So instead, he reaches out and takes his brother’s hand firmly in his own, reminding himself of exactly what was important right now. The edge of the quilt brushing his wrist and the heat from Seth’s palm makes the walk up the jagged, cracked front steps that much easier.

When the social worker knocks on the door Richie feels it echo inside of him. It might be from dehydration or smoke inhalation or the fact that neither he nor Seth had any real sleep that night, but Richie swears he can hear the house, whispering to him in a quiet groan, _you have no place here firestarter, leave this place before my bones crack under the weight of you._ He does his best to ignore it, and slowly, the whispering fades until he can no longer hear it over the birds chirping, signaling the official arrival of morning.

After a long while, a portly older woman in a faded floral dress answers the door with an annoyed look. Behind her, the house is dimly lit and eerily silent, the floor littered with toys and loose pieces of clothing, the only thing in the dreary room showing the fact that the house was apparently full of children.

“I told you already, there's no more room here.” The woman hisses, glaring at Susan, not even glancing at them. At the top of the stairs just barely visible from the outside of the front door Richie sees a blinding white flash followed by a quiet whirring sound, he turns to Seth to ask him if he’d seen it too, but Seth waves him off, stares ahead with a clenched jaw, his eyes dry but still red, watching two adults bicker over their future. 

“It's just for a few nights I promise. Their uncle will be here by Monday.” Susan’s voice is still sickly sweet, barely phased by the woman at the door, like she wasn’t an actual person but some kind of fembot, one of the Stepford Wives brought to life.

“Does _no_ mean nothing to you people? Take them somewhere else! I’ve already got a full house.” The woman says with a flourish towards the empty room behind her.

“Beverly, please.” For the first time in the hours they had known her, the social workers smile breaks. Just a fraction, but enough for Richie to see underneath the surface, the cracks in her blindingly bright surface, the weariness she hid so well. In a quieter voice, one they’re obviously not meant to hear, she adds, “There is nowhere else.”

“Maybe I can take one, but-” The woman- Beverly- gets cut off by the sudden appearance of a young girl grabbing onto her arm, gently tugging at her sleeve. She turns towards the source of the intrusion, annoyance written clearly across her face. 

“They can have my bed.” The girl offers in a soft voice, glancing up at Beverly through her eyelashes, her lips pulled down into a perfect pout. Richie has seen Seth use that look on Eddie before to get something out of him, but he’s never been able to master it himself. _Puppy dog eyes,_ Eddie calls it _._ “Ben and I can share. Please?”

Beverly glances from the girl to the boys and back again before sighing heavily and turning on Susan. “Fine. They can _both_ stay for a few days. But you owe me.”

The social worker smiles again but the cracks are still there, maybe were always there, he just didn’t notice them before. He needs to start paying more attention, especially here in this house full of strangers that can speak to him. Susan tells them, _don’t worry, your uncle will be here in just a few days. You’ll be safe here until then._ Richie doesn’t believe her, but there’s no use in arguing. She leaves without so much as a backward glance, wiping her slate clean of them, like the medic and cop before her.

Beverly brings them inside, muttering about all the dirt they were tracking in behind them like they weren’t covered head to toe in the ashes of their previous life. As soon as the door shuts behind them, she waves them off, walking away without so much as another word.

The girl jogs up the stairs quickly, gesturing for them to follow. At the top, she stops suddenly, leaning down and whispering with a small brown-haired boy who sat on the edge of the top stair, clinging so tightly to the banister that his knuckles were white. 

While the two of them whisper with each other, Richie takes the opportunity to study them closely, wary of missing any other crucial details. The girl is rail-thin like she hasn’t seen a good meal in her life, and at least a head taller than Richie. Her hair was pulled back into a loose braid, trailing down to the middle of her back, the color reminded him of a sunset, of the sun reflecting orange and burning through the clouds. Her skin was pale, almost translucent, even in the dim light of the room, what little he could see of it was covered in freckles, almost like someone had splattered her with brown paint. Barely visible from underneath the edges of her shirt he can see thick, white, raised lines littering the back of her arms and neck. Immediately he recognizes them as welt scars, most likely from a belt. He would know them anywhere. He saw them every day.

Where the girl is rough, all sharp edges and long thin limbs, the boy is soft and small. He’s about Seth’s size, with more weight to him. His jaw is rounder, softer than the girls, his cheeks fuller. His skin is slightly more tanned, his hair a dark shade of brown, like a strong coffee. It’s not until they both turn towards him that he sees the resemblance, that he marks them as siblings. It's the eyes that give them away. A warm shade of hazel, shifting in the dim light, the girls into a light green, the boys into a stormy gray.

As quickly as the girl stopped, she starts again, walking them away from the boy and down a long dark hallway full on both sides with doors. Carefully, Richie takes in his surroundings, walking slowly behind the girl, cataloging everything his gaze falls on.

“I’m Brooke, that’s my brother Ben. He’s crazy shy.” She talks as quickly as she walks, the words falling in a rush out of her mouth as she leads them down the hall. Richie barely hears her anyway, too focused on the doors. Some were dark brown, others white, a few had clearly been drawn on with crayons and markers. But the thing that stood out the most was that not one single door was the same, not the shape or size, one was even too small for its frame, a large slant of light peering through the top of it. Most of them were closed, but a few were cracked open, other children peeking out and watching them make their way down the hall with cold, hard eyes.

_More weight to carry,_ the house groans when Richie steps on the wrong board, reminding him of its presence. Each board told him something different. _More bodies to warm,_ step, _more mouths to feed,_ step, _more more more._

_Leave this place in peace,_ it whines at him as she opens a curved wooden door at the end of the hallway, ushering them into a small room with a low, slanted ceiling. There were two beds pushed against the wall on either side of the room, a large window above the one on the right, a small desk between them. Other than the unmade beds and the strap of a backpack peeking out from beneath the left bed there was no evidence that anyone lives there. It feels more to Richie like a cell than a bedroom, but he knows better than most that looks can be deceiving. 

“The bed on the right is yours. I gotta go help Bev get the younger kids ready for school, we’re running real late.” Before either of them can reply, she’s gone. Richie can hear her steps as she moves quickly back down the hall, listens until they disappear entirely before he turns back towards his brother.

For a moment, they both stand awkwardly in the middle of the room watching each other. As usual, Seth breaks the tension, sighing heavily as he sits on their borrowed bed. “This sucks.”

“Tell me about it.” Before he can stop it, a small manic bubble of laughter escapes his lips. He tries to cover it with a cough but Seth shoots him a dirty look, tears returning to his eyes. 

“Richie, what are we gonna do? Our house _burned down._ ” The words echo throughout the room, a touch too loud. He continues, quieter, voice breaking, “Dad’s _dead_ .” Richie manages to stop the smile that threatens to creep to the surface, reminding himself, _not the time, not the place_.

“Hey,” Richie says softly, sitting next to his brother on the small bed. “when Eddie gets here it’s all gonna be okay. I promise.”

Seth sniffles, wipes his sleeve across his face the way Richies been trying to get him to stop doing for ages, and looks up at him like he’s the only person on earth that he can trust, asking him in a small voice, “You really think so?”

“Of course I do. And I’m always right, so stop worrying so much.” Richie pulls the quilt off of Seth and drapes it around them both, pulling his brother against him in a tight hug. “Hey, at least we still have this.” He didn’t know if Seth remembers where it came from, who made it, why it was the only other thing Richie had grabbed on their mad dash for the door. 

“Yeah.” Together, they lay down on the bed, covering themselves with the last tangible piece of their previous lives. A life jacket protecting them from the storm raging ahead. “At least we still have Mom.”

He might not have a lot of things, like parents or clean clothes, but he still has his brother. And really, that's all he needs. All he’ll ever need.

-

Richie wakes sometime later to the sound of distant, frantic screaming. He jumps out of bed, ready to grab a still fast asleep Seth and run when the sound stops as quickly as it had begun. Over the sound of his racing heart, he can hear laughter, bright and cheerful from just outside the window above the bed. With a deep breath, he looks out of it warily.

Through the dirty glass, he sees a handful of younger kids wearing a rainbow assortment of clothes chasing each other down the long driveway leading to the house. Backing the group he instantly spots Brooke, her red hair like a beacon in the midday sunlight.

For a moment he thinks about turning away, almost does, but something draws him back. And when he looks again, he can see Brooke, close enough now that he can almost make out her features, jumping up and down, waving her arms wildly in the air. She almost hits Ben in the face but he ducks under her arm at the last second, the move practiced.

Cautiously, he raises his hand and waves back at her.

-

When Brooke finishes herding the younger kids, who she affectionately refers to as babies even though the youngest is at least 5, into the backyard, she shows them around the house.

Ben follows close behind, her smaller, softer shadow. _There are rules,_ she tells them, _but there’s only one that really matters. Don’t cross Bev. She’s in charge here, and she’s got about as much patience as the Queen of Hearts, so you better keep a tight grip on your head while you still got it._

Most of the house is off-limits. Other kids' rooms ( _unless you wanna lose a hand)_ , the living room ( _unless you wanna get beat)_ , even the kitchen ( _unless it's your turn to clean)_. She says that most of the kids just do their chores and spend the rest of the day outside.

Soon after the tour, Brooke passes them off to her brother, citing her extra chores as an excuse before wandering off into the forbidden living room. Ben doesn’t talk, just gestures towards the backdoor and up the stairs, giving them a choice before walking up the steps.

Seth bolts out the backdoor before Richie can stop him. Through the sliding glass door, he can see his brother diving headfirst into the nearest group of kids, a smile across his face. Every inch of the yard is claimed, from the far corner of the fence to the back porch, there's at least one person sitting in the overgrown grass and there’s no way he’s up to that much socialization right now, so Richie follows Ben’s lead and heads up the stairs and back to the room.

Inside, Ben sits at the desk, hunched over something. Richie steps closer, glancing over Ben’s shoulder. It's a drawing, only half-finished he assumes. A plain vase filled with a bouquet of sunflowers. The lines are light, practically invisible, the curves so perfect it’s almost as if they were traced. “You like to draw?” Richie asks after a few moments, when it starts to feel like he's watching something private, something he isn't meant to see.

Ben jumps, moves to close his sketchbook, but he pauses, hovering for a moment before moving his hands back to the surface of the desk, whispering his answer, “Paint, mostly.” His voice is just as soft as he is, just as quiet and jittery. Honestly, he’s surprised that Ben answered at all, he’d expected a nod or maybe a stony silence, not actual words, and he sure doesn’t expect him to continue but he does, voice a touch louder. “Do you?”

Without really thinking about it, Richie answers swiftly, the words easily falling out of his mouth, it wasn’t everyday that he gets to talk about his art with someone who understands. “Yeah, Seth and I have our own comic called _Discount Reality._ It's about a P.I. named Saul Vitahl who lives in the Golden Age of Hollywood and he takes jobs from movie stars. We had a whole bunch of them before…” Richie trails off, thinking about the notebook on his bookshelf back at the house full of the only copies of their storyboards and sketches, all of their hard work burnt to a crisp.

Without another word Ben flips his sketchbook to an empty page, ripping it out and handing it to Richie along with a pencil. He takes it cautiously, waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

When it doesn’t, he sits on the floor, using the wood as a base to hold the paper still. He draws what he had seen earlier. Seth, king of the misfits, diving headfirst into a group of strangers, his smile like the beacon of a lighthouse, guiding him back home during a storm.

-

Later that night, after an awkward dinner, a much-needed shower and a semi-fresh change of clothes, Richie goes back to the room fully intending to fall into a deep and blissful sleep, only to find Seth already deep asleep, spread out across the bed looking more peaceful than Richie had seen him in years. 

The sight of his brother, spread out on the stained sheets, face open and serene, makes his guilt lessen, if only a bit. He’d done the right thing, he’d set them free, there were no other options. But even as he thinks it he can taste the ash in his mouth again, feel it coating his skin. The house begins to whisper to him again, calling him _firestarter, murderer,_ and suddenly he needs fresh air, more than he needs sleep. He needs to be somewhere that he can’t hear the house anymore, the whispers and the groans growing by the second.

Richie soon finds himself in the backyard, surprised at how different it is from the front. He’d seen it earlier, but it was almost a completely separate place in the darkness, devoid of all life. The grass is long and luscious, overgrown in patches, toys hidden in the dense foliage. A half-broken swing set stands tall and inviting to the right of the lawn, wood sun-bleached and cracked from the elements. The sun obviously shines back here. 

He sucks in a greedy lungful of fresh air, lying down in one of the patches of soft grass. Watching the fireflies zoom over him, he sees the moon as if for the first time, with fresh new eyes. Never before had it looked so bright, so full, never before had he noticed how much light it reflected. He felt like how he imagined a phoenix would feel as it rose from its ashes, powerful but also frightened by this new world he found himself in, relearning what it meant to simply be.

The quiet whirring sound and bright flash from before shakes him from his thoughts and he looks towards the source of the sudden light, finding Brooke standing a few feet away from him, a camera cradled gently in her pale hands.

“Sorry about earlier.” She says softly, taking a step closer as she pulls the picture from the camera. “Bev’s pretty strict about chores.”

Richie watches her steadily, letting the silence grow between them like a wall, hoping she’ll take the hint. She drops the camera, letting the strap around her neck catch it, slipping the picture into her pocket.

“I just wanted to bring you this.” Stepping closer, she drops a backpack onto the ground next to him. He sits up slowly, watching her warily even as he grabs the bag, only taking his eyes off of her when she sits down across from him.

Inside the bag he finds clothes in roughly his and Seth's sizes, much cleaner than the ones they had been given earlier, some basic toiletries, an almost empty notebook, and a set of playing cards still in the plastic wrap.

“Thanks.” He finally manages to say around the knot that begins to grow in his throat at the mere thought of clean clothes.

“No problem.” She laughs quietly, holding her camera up again, pointing it at the sky. A whir and a flash. She sets the picture gently on the ground.

“How long have you been here?” The question slips out of his mouth before he can think it through, his curiosity getting the best of him.

“Too long.” Another whir, another flash, another picture.

“Do you like it?”

“There's a lot worse places to be.” Whir, flash, picture.

“What happened to your parents?”

She laughs, louder than before, startling him. “They died.”

“How?”

“Same as you.” She says quietly, with a pointed glance in his direction, her eyes briefly flashing in the light of the fireflies, suddenly serious. For a moment Richie sees himself reflected back, but it passes so quickly he isn't sure it even happened.

“Oh.” _Did you set it?_ He thinks but doesn't ask. _If you did, how? Lighter fluid? Gasoline? How did you get away with it? Why did you do it?_ Instead, he asks her, _“_ Did you know that there are over 2000 species of fireflies? The most common is the photuris pyralis. They defend themselves by giving off foul odors and releasing a sticky substance. It's known as reflex bleeding. What if people could do that?”

“The world would smell a lot worse.” She crinkles her nose, waving her hand in front of her face like she was clearing the air. Richie doesn’t crack a smile, but she keeps going anyway, either unaware of him or simply not caring.

“But you’d be able to tell who the bad people are. No matter how good and clean they looked, you’d be able to smell it. And then you could protect yourself. Before it's too late.” Not entirely sure why, he finds himself trying to get her attention, to reason with her, to get her to see the meaning behind his words.

Slowly, she turns towards him, her smile gone. “It's never too late for anything.” She says in a voice so quiet he isn’t even sure she said anything at all. The final polaroid joins the others on the grass and the puzzle is complete. A panoramic of the fireflies movement through the night sky, almost like a comet. She grins at him and for a second he swears he can see something dark behind her teeth, but she stands before he can check again, gathering her pictures quickly and walking back into the house.

He stays in the grass for a long while, watching the fireflies move through the sky until only two remain, dancing a fiery pa de deux, leaving trails of light behind them. After he gets too cold, he follows her inside the house, wondering idly if maybe the dark thing he had seen was the house taken root in her. Or maybe she was the house, maybe it was her that had been whispering to him. Maybe the whispers were not threats but warnings.

That night he dreams of a forest on fire. Of a tall thin figure watching him from inside the flames, beckoning for him to join them. He almost does. Almost. But before he can, Seth is there, grabbing onto his arm and pulling him away from the fire, shouting at him all the while, _we need to get out of here_.

-

The next day is Saturday, _so the place is gonna be jam-packed_ , Brooke tells them, _unless you wanna get stuck babysitting, you better get your chores done fast and get out the door._

Since Richie and Seth are still considered guests, they haven't been assigned chores yet so they help Brooke and Ben with theirs. Together the four of them make quick work of the kitchen. After about 20 minutes the place is sparkling, or at least as close as it ever will be, and Brooke calls it good. Ben goes upstairs, returning with a tattered army green backpack that he hands off to Brooke.

  
  
She leads them out back and over the fence. Richie tries to ask where they’re going, but Ben waves him off, mutters, _roll with it_ , under his breath just loud enough for Richie to hear, so he reluctantly does, following his brothers lead. He’s never been a go with the flow type of person, not like Seth. No, Richie likes things neat and orderly, _a place for everything, and everything in its place_. He hates surprises and he hates being spontaneous and more than anything he hates not knowing.

  
  
Seth follows next to her, jogging to keep up with her long stride, chattering up a storm all the while. Richie and Ben trail behind them, a comfortable silence between them.

Eventually, after what feels like hours of walking, they come to a small bridge overlooking a murky green creek, so shallow you could see the rocks covering the bed, even through the dark water. Brooke climbs over the concrete ledge and jumps without a backward glance. Richie and Seth run to the edge, glancing over it nervously, expecting to find her sitting in the creek with a broken leg, but she's nowhere to be found.

Ben follows close behind her, dropping off the ledge and landing gracefully on the edge of the water, gesturing for them to follow. Seth goes next, landing in the middle of the creek with a laugh, splashing through the water.

Richie climbs up onto the ledge, his legs dangling over the edge, fully ready to jump, but when he looks down, something makes him think about the book his class was reading, _Bridge to Terabithia._ He’d torn through the entire thing in one sitting and instantly regretted it. He couldn’t stop thinking about Leslie, about what it would feel like to drown, alone, knowing that no one was coming to save you. Would it be better to be unaware as your life slowly drained from your body? Or would it be better to be awake? At least then you had a chance to reflect before the silence overtook you.

Silence. No more splashing, no more laughter. Panicked, Richie quickly looks up from the water, finding himself alone, Seth nowhere to be found. _He may not have been born with guts, but he didn't have to die without them._ “Seth!” He shouts as he jumps, landing on his feet near the edge of the water, thankfully sparing his shoes a good soaking. 

“Richie!” Comes a reply from further down the creek. He runs after it, heart racing, worrying thoughts filling his head. “Hurry!” The voice calls again, much closer and clearly Seth’s, followed by a series of splashing. Richie ducks into the trees where the source of the sound is coming from and almost falls headfirst into a small lagoon.

“Hate to break it to you, buddy,” Seth shouts at him, swimming over, “But you’re too late, you’re the rotten egg.” Seth splashes him with freezing cold water, swimming away before Richie can retaliate.

In the murky water, he can see Seth, swimming back towards deeper water. Brooke floats along past him, lying on her back, arms outstretched, face turned towards the sky. On the shore, Ben sits on a tattered blue blanket, sketchbook open in his lap, a box of paints next to him. “What about him?”

Brooke’s voice startles him, closer than he’d expected. “Ben doesn’t count.” He turns back to the water, Brooke and Seth are right on the edge watching him.

Uncomfortable under their combined scrutiny, he blurts out the first excuse he can think of, “I don’t have a swimsuit.”

Brooke shrugs, the water shifting underneath the movement of her arms, the straps of her tank top just barely visible. “Neither do we.”

Finally, he gives in. Sits on the blanket next to Ben and slowly peels off his clothes, leaving only his underwear and t-shirt on. Slowly, he makes his way into the water. Before he can get used to the temperature, Seth jumps on his back, dunking him under the murky surface.

-

“You guys play poker?” Brooke asks after they call it quits and move into the sunshine to dry off, the corner of her mouth tugging upwards ever so slightly as she pulls a well-worn pack of cards out of her backpack.

Seth laughs, “Does the pope shit in the woods?”

“Watch your mouth.” Richie chides him, turning to Brooke, “What are we playing for?”

“Is my friendship not enough?” She jokes, dumping the contents of her backpack out onto the blanket. There’s some loose money, maybe around $14 total, a seemingly gold watch that he doesn’t truly believe is real, a silver necklace with a small green stone in the shape of a teardrop attached to the chain. But what really catches his eye is the knife, long and slender, with a light cherrywood hilt, which he instantly recognizes as a Linder, his dad's favorite brand. _Say what you will about Krauts, but they sure know their pig stickers._ His dad's voice rings in his ears, but he ignores it, focusing on the knife. He wants it, no, he needs it. “The winner today will get their pick of the litter.”

“I’m in.” Richie says quickly, already imagining the way it would feel in his hand, the weight of it, how far he could throw it.

-

Brooke almost wins, but on the last hand Richie lays her out with a straight flush. To her credit, she takes the loss well, much better than he would. Seth and him were both sore losers, always have been, but Richie was always much worse, even he could admit that. It wasn’t all their fault. For as long as he can remember his dad was telling them, _if you’re not first, you’re last, and there ain’t nothing worse than a loser._ Did a damn good job beating it into them.

“Deals a deal,” She gestures towards the loot pile, waving her arms through the air dramatically. Richie snatches up the knife as quickly as he can. He tests the weight of it, handle-heavy, the sharpness of the blade, dull like it had never been sharpened before. “Go ahead,” Brooke continues in a voice that he’s sure is supposed to be Vanna White. “Take your pick. Just don’t let anyone see you with your prize.”

She says it with such conviction that Richie almost laughs, catching himself at the last moment. “Why, they stolen or something?”

“It’s more like finders keepers.” Brooke shrugs, “Not every kid comes back for their stuff, and whatever gets left behind is fair game.”

The sun had started to set during their game, so as soon as Richie picks his prize, Brooke tells them it's time to head out. _Some of the high schoolers come here to party after dark and you don’t wanna be here when they show up._ She shoves the rest of the loot back into the backpack, followed by Bens sketchbook and paintbox, and finally the blanket.

The walk back to the house feels longer than it did earlier, maybe because of the hours they’d spent swimming. Either way, Richie finds himself falling behind again, Seth and Brooke walking ahead, chattering up a storm, just far enough that he can’t hear them.

Ben taps Richie on the shoulder, startling him into stopping in his tracks. He hands Richie a folded piece of paper before walking off, as silent as ever. He unfolds the paper slowly, wary of what might be written on it, but it’s just a picture.

A bouquet of sunflowers in a blue and yellow vase, the same drawing he’d seen Ben working on the day before, but that had just been a sketch, this was the final product, and it took his breath away. The colors are vibrant, the paint strokes precise and nearly perfect, but what really gets to him are the flowers themselves. Instead of seeds, the heads are small pieces of red hot charcoal, the petals are the flames, licking out from the center of each flower, edging up towards the top of the painting like fingers reaching for the sky.

-

The next day they go back to the lagoon. Brooke brings a notebook with her. She tells them each to make two lists, one of the things they lost and will miss, and one of the things that they won’t. _That way,_ she tells them, _it’ll be easier to start working on replacing what you can._

It takes them a few hours, but eventually, Richie and Seth finish their lists. Brooke takes the papers from them, folds them into tiny squares, and drops them into a metal bowl she pulls out of her bag.

_“_ Fire doesn’t just destroy _,”_ She says, striking a match and dropping it into the bowl, “It also creates. It purifies. In some places, they start forest fires on purpose. Its called a controlled burn. The trees need the fire, they need to burn. If they don’t, they get sick, they start to rot, they get infested with bugs and the dirt turns to poison underneath them.” She puts the bowl into the water and pushes it out. “People are a lot like that too. If they stay in one place too long, standing too still in the same old dirt, they start to rot just the same. They get sick and mean and in turn, they make others the same way, until pretty soon there’s a whole forest full of rotten trees. And by then, the only thing you can do is burn the whole thing down to make way for new growth and hope that the rot doesn’t creep back in.”

-

Eddie shows up early Monday morning, just after the rest of the kids leave for school. Pulling up to the house in a huff, eyes red-rimmed, clothes sweat-stained and disheveled, his hair not much better. He’d been in California for the last couple of months, fishing and drinking and napping on the beach he’d told them over the phone the week before when they had finally managed to get ahold of him. One look at him and it was clear that he’d been driving nonstop since he’d gotten the news.

Eddie crosses the feet between them in a series of quick steps, almost crashing into them as they step off of the porch, wrapping both of them up in his arms, hugging them almost painfully tight against him while he talks over them to Beverly. Eddies thanks her profusely for watching them until he could make it back to town, tells her, _I owe you one ma’am._ Bev grins at him, a new woman, no longer old beyond her years, no longer bitter and cold, but young and warm and almost _friendly_. It makes Richie feel sick, the disingenuousness of the whole exchange, but he doesn’t say anything, just lets himself bask in the warmth he felt in Eddie’s embrace, the familiar smell of gun oil and strong coffee, letting out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding.

At that moment, his face smushed into Eddie’s chest, his brother’s breath on his neck, Richie feels safe for the first time in years. This is what he’d wanted from the social worker, that nameless thing he had craved. He’d wanted to be comforted, cared for, maybe even loved.

Eddie shuffles them into his car as quickly as he can, chattering mindlessly about his plans for their future. For the first time in the days since their lives had gone up in flames both Richie and Seth forget about their troubles, even for just a moment, and let themselves be hooked on Eddies every word. They let themselves fall so deeply into a sense of hesitant hope that they momentarily forget about their new friends, and don't even think to look behind them, to go back inside and gather their things.

If they had, Richie might have heard the house, groaning out a rough, _goodbye_. For even though it begrudged the weight of them, the house loved its children and mourned the loss of each one.


	2. family is what you make of it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie would do anything for those boys, he knew it better than he had ever known anything before or since. He would pull the moon from the sky just to light their home. He would steal the entire ocean just so they could have a place to swim. He would claim an unknown land in a far off place and raise them there, safe and secure from the world and what he knew lay in wake for them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unbeta'd so any mistakes are mine, maria's character was inspired by chapter 3 of 'a story of need against need against need' by opheliahyde

Eddie is standing in his kitchen, enjoying a cup of warm coffee before heading back to work when he hears movement in the backyard. Through the window above the sink he can see a backpack lying in the grass and a small red-headed girl struggling to climb over the top of the fence. He watches her fall onto her back on the ground, when she stands there are leaves in her hair. She picks up the backpack and wanders over to the boys window, knocking lightly on the glass.

For a moment he thinks about scaring the Jesus out of her and giving her a talking to, but he soon thinks better of it. It would be easier to get them all in one place first, like shooting fish in a barrel. He watches until finally the boys window slides open and she gleefully climbs inside. That was his cue. 

He set down his coffee cup and begins the walk across the house to the spare room he was still working on furnishing for the boys. Even after the weeks they’d been with him they still only had the one bed, no dresser, barely any clothes to put in it even if they did. He’d missed out on that job in California and Ray‘s funeral cleaned him out. It wasn’t like the bastard had life insurance or any kind of plan for his children, so Eddie was being forced to wing it, which went against everything he believed in. At least business was going alright at the repair shop, he would hopefully have enough to get them some necessities soon. If they wore their funeral suits to school again he was sure there would be some kind of parent-teacher meeting where they called into question exactly how ready he was to raise two grieving children, and he wasn’t too sure how he would handle that.

When he makes it to their door he can hear them inside talking loudly over each other. They either didn’t know he was home, or were terrible at sneaking around. He was gonna go with the former, they were both slippery kids, had to be with Ray Gecko for a dad. He waits for a lull in their conversation before he opens the door.

“So,” he says, dragging out the _o_ as the door creaks open. The three of them turn toward him quickly, falling over each other in their hurry to face him. Behind them there are clothes, toys, even a few books spread across the bed, the backpack the girl had been carrying earlier open next to it. “Anyone care to explain what’s going on here or should I start guessing?”

“I can-“

“We’re-“

“Sir,” the girl says, stepping forward, holding a hand out to shush the boys. “It’s my fault. I take full responsibility.”

“Well kid,” He looks between her and the bed, the clothes with tags still attached and toys still in their packaging, wondering idly for a moment where she’d gotten it before deciding that it didn’t matter. At least the boys had a friend. And with all the stuff she’d brought he could hold out on buying them anything new for awhile. “How about you go knock on the front door like a normal person and I’ll let you all off the hook this time. As long as you promise this won’t happen again. Deal?” He holds out his hand, raising an eyebrow at her when she takes it with a shockingly firm grip for her size. She turns without another word and climbs back out the window. The boys look at him sheepishly, obviously waiting for him to explode. He opens his mouth to reassure them when there’s a knock on the front door. It could wait, they deserved time to be kids.

He makes his way to the front of the house, opening it with a flourish, smiling slightly when he sees a branch sticking out of the girl’s messy hair.

“Hello sir, sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if the boys could come out to play.”

Eddie laughs, startling the girl he could tell, but she doesn't slip out of her facade, still smiling at him respectfully, avoiding direct eye contact, the perfect face of a child blindly respecting their elders.

“Of course they can, but you gotta promise me one thing first. Can you do that?”

“Of course sir.”

“Keep those boys out of trouble, you hear me?”

She grins at him, all sharp teeth and barely contained ferocity, her mask slipping for a few moments before she catches herself and her smile dims. “I promise that I will do my best to keep them out of trouble.”

“I'm gonna remember this, so don't let me down.” He doesn't miss the loophole she had slipped casually into her response, but he decides to give her a chance anyway. She was feisty, he liked that.

Eddie yells behind him for the boys and they come around the corner quickly, pushing past him and excitedly chatting with Brooke again, the incident earlier all but forgotten. Richie pulls the stick out of her hair and Seth brushes the dirt off of her back, and Eddie thinks to himself, _those boys have a hell of a time ahead of them with that one._ They run off together, waving back at Eddie as they disappear down the road.

-

The day that Richie was born, Eddie made it to the hospital hours before Ray did. He sat in the room with Maria holding her hand through every contraction, didn’t even complain when she almost broke his fingers on a particularly bad one.

She prays softly to herself between contractions, clutching at the silver cross around her neck while she does. Eddie himself had never been a religious man, he didn’t care for the idea that there was some all powerful man in the sky judging his every move. He had decided early on that if he was gonna go to hell, it would be on his own terms. But he still prayed with her anyway, held her hand and bowed his head, mouthing along with her. _Our Father in heaven, hail Mary full of grace, amen, amen, amen._

Her pregnancy had been smooth and easy, she barely even had morning sickness, and her labor is no different, lasting a little over 3 hours. Ray still hadn’t shown up, so Eddie stays in the room with her while she delivers, holds her hand and soothes back her hair, keeps praying for her when she has to pause and push.

When the baby finally makes its grand entrance into the world, the doctor asks Eddie if he wants to cut the cord and there's an awkward pause where he doesn’t know what to say. Maria answers for him, a quiet breathless, _yes,_ a soft shove against his arm _._

Any reservations he’d had disappear when he sees the baby, blood soaked and screaming. It’s both the most disgusting and most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. He wants to barf, he wants to cry, he wants to protect this squealing little person with everything he has, he wants to turn tail and take off out the door.

His hands don’t shake when he cuts the cord. But they do shake later, when Maria hands him the baby, almost forcing it into his arms. _Not an it, a him._ Eddie reminds himself. _Richard, such an old name for such a young person._

It’s not until the baby opens his too blue eyes and looks at him that Eddie finally understands what the deal was the whole time, why everyone cared so much about the screaming gremlins. Then the baby smiles and it's like his whole goddamn world gets brighter.

It was in that moment that he decided that he would do anything for this kid. He’d kill or die for him, he wasn’t picky. If he needed clothes, he’d give him the shirt off his back. If he needed a place to crash, he’d give up his bed. If he needed a kidney, he’d learn to live with just the one.

Then Ray finally shows up and Eddie’s shaken from his thoughts. He hands the baby over, fading back into his rightful place in the background.

-

When the boys get home, Eddie is sitting in the living room, watching an old black and white western while dozing off in his chair. He perks up as the door clicks open and Eddie checks the clock, barely on time. They try to sneak past him, but he startles them by speaking.

“Don't think we're not gonna talk about this.”

They groan in unison and sit on the couch, avoiding eye contact with him.

“Now I don't mind if you want to have your friends over or if you want to go out with them sometimes, but you can't be sneaking them into the house. What you don't seem to understand is that I'm not just responsible for you two, but anyone you bring over. If that little girl had gotten hurt climbing the fence, who do you think her parents would blame? You gotta start-”

“She doesn't have parents.” Seth interrupts him, voice icy and hard.

“What?”

“She's from the house in town where you picked us up. We met her there.”

“And she has a name.” Richie speaks up for the first time, his tone harsh and angry.

“Okay then, what's her name?”

“Brooke.” Both of the boys say at once, their matching tones hard and mean. “And she's our friend.”

“Alright, alright simmer down. I'm not saying you can't be friends with her, you just can't lie to me about it okay? I need to know who you're out with and where you're going. I need you both to be honest with me, about everything, good or bad. I can’t promise I won't get mad, but I can promise that I won’t ever hold it against you. Okay?”

“Okay.” They both say again in unison. Eddie wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to that.

“No, I need your word. You gotta swear. Promise me that you will never lie to me again, ever, no matter what.” He holds his hand up, first three fingers straight up, thumb crossed over to hold his pinky down. “Scouts honor.”

“I promise that I will never lie to you.” They say together, holding their hands up, mirroring him, and not for the last time Eddie is struck by how easily they move together, speak together, without even thinking about it.

“Tomorrow you guys are gonna invite her over for dinner so that I can get to know her. Now go do your homework, I’ll get dinner ready.”

“Yes, sir.” They both wander off towards their room, shuffling their feet with heads hung low, acting the part of wounded animals but Eddie catches the small smile they share when they think he’s looked away. 

“And I better not find you boys sneaking girls into the house again!” He shouts after them. “At least not until you’re older.” He says quietly, more to himself.

-

The day that Seth was born, its Eddie who’s late. He’d been a few hours away casing a potential job when the pager he’d forced them all to get after last time goes off. _SOS_. He’s in the car so fast he’s pretty sure he leaves a dust cloud in the shape of him behind.

He breaks every speed limit on his way to the hospital, cuts the drive in half but it's still too long. By the time he makes it inside Maria’s in the operating room for an emergency c-section. Ray starts rambling the moment Eddie walks into his sight, pushing a crying Richie into his arms. _She’s almost two weeks early, it doesn’t look pretty, they wouldn’t let me in, who the fuck are they to say where I can’t go._

This pregnancy had been much different from the first. Maria was sick almost from day one, and there were other numerous complications. For the last couple of weeks she’d been stuck in bed on doctors orders. Eddie had all but moved into the house with them, taking care of Richie so she could rest. Being trapped had been driving her insane, Eddie could tell when he visited with her when he’d managed to get Richie down for a nap. He’d brought her books and movies and sometimes when she was feeling particularly terrible, he would even sit and pray with her or let her read him her favorite passages from the Bible.

It had been over an hour since she had gone in for surgery and none of the nurses were giving them straight answers about how much longer it would be before they were done. At least Richie had finally fallen asleep, crashed face down on the floor in the waiting room. Eddie thought about moving him but didn’t want to risk waking the little devil.

He had probably another ten minutes of waiting left in him before he climbed over the nurses desk and throttled one of them for information, which he was debating on cutting down to five when the doctor finally showed up. He tells them that Maria and the baby are fine, but they had to stay for a day or two for observation. They could visit with her for a bit, but then she needed to rest.

He takes them to her room and a weight lifts from his shoulders when he sees her sitting there holding the baby, a tired smile on her pale face. _Seth_ , she says when they enter through the door. _His name is Seth._

This time the feeling is instant, and when it’s Eddie’s turn to hold him he jumps at the chance. The baby coos and smiles, raising a tiny fist in the air, staring at him with brown eyes. There’s a light tug on his pants and he looks down to see a now awake Richie staring up at him with a look of curiosity. Slowly, carefully, he crouches down and shows him the baby. Richie’s eyes light up and he raises his small hand, gently touching the babies arm.

Eddie would do anything for those boys, he knew it better than he had ever known anything before or since. He would pull the moon from the sky just to light their home. He would steal the entire ocean just so they could have a place to swim. He would claim an unknown land in a far off place and raise them there, safe and secure from the world and what he knew lay in wake for them.

And he tried. He really did. But sometimes trying isn’t enough.

-

The next day the boys come home from school alone. When Eddie asks about the girl they brush him off, saying that she couldn't come over, she had chores to do at home. Eddie knows better than to believe them. They weren’t lying to him, he knows that, but they were hiding something, and that was basically the same thing.

That night, after they finish dinner and sit down in the living room to watch a movie while the boys do their homework, there's a frantic knock at the door. Eddie answers it, surprised to see Brooke standing there, blood running from her nose, a smaller boy with brown hair leaning heavily on her. Even with the distance between them, Eddie can see the blood in the boys hair, bruises already forming on both of their faces.

Without a word, Eddie ushers them inside, pushing the boys off of the couch, lying the boy on the cushions, checking him over, sighing in relief when he finds him still breathing. He turns to bark orders at Richie and Seth, only to find them already springing into action.

Richie pulls Brooke into the bathroom, checking her over for wounds and cleaning the blood off of her face and hands, talking to her calmly the entire time. Seth gets the first aid kit and the bottle of rubbing alcohol they keep underneath the kitchen sink in case of emergencies like this and returns before Eddie can even think to ask.

Eddie watches the boys move with an odd mixture of sadness and pride. They were too young to be tending to wounds like it was second nature, but they did it so well that it was hard to tell. He had noticed how much Ray had influenced them before, in the way they would bring him a beer as soon as he came home almost like they had been waiting for him, or in the way they stared at the ground, heads bowed and shoulders hunched, whenever he raised his voice, even a little. He cursed himself in those moments for not noticing sooner how badly Ray had been treating them, for writing off every bruise and broken bone as simple childhood injuries, for letting himself get so caught up in working that he forgot his promise to their mother and himself. That no matter what he would keep them safe, he would protect them, he would be the wall that shielded them from the outside world. But he hadn’t ever stopped to consider the world inside.

Sure Ray had been a world-class jackass, but there was no way even he’d lay a hand on his children, or at least that’s what Eddie had thought. From what little he’d gotten out of the boys, Ray had done just that and more. Burning and beating and degrading the very kids that he was supposed to love unconditionally. If Eddie had known, if he’d even had the slightest idea, he would have taken the boys sooner, before anything truly horrific could have happened to them. At the very least he was only a little too late, too late to protect them, but early enough that something good might be able to come out of it.

There were things the boys did that reminded him like a punch to the gut that they were without a doubt Ray’s kids. He could see it in the way Richie’s eyes would sometimes go hard and mean when he didn’t get his way, or in the way Seth could lie through his teeth without even realizing he was doing it. But this? The boys doting over and caring for this girl and her brother? That was all Maria. That was her heart, her love, her care. That was the part of them that Eddie wanted to save, to nourish. Sure they were Ray’s kids, but that didn’t mean they had to be him, they had something he didn’t, that tiny sliver of light inside of them. One last gift from their mother.

Eddie missed Maria fiercely, had for years, but what had started as a hole in his heart had slowly scabbed over once he’d taught himself not to pick at it, and eventually he thought about her less and less until he didn’t think about her at all. At least until now. Ray’s death had ripped the scab off and the wound was now once again red and raw, and he couldn’t keep his fingers off of it. He needed her, the boys needed her. How was he supposed to teach them right from wrong when he didn’t know himself?

-

“Who is that kid?” Eddie asks the girl after everything had calmed down, the boy now resting in the spare bed, his wounds mended to the best of Eddie's abilities. He’d be fine, a couple of bruises and a sprained wrist, but nothing as serious as the girls wounds. Her knuckles were split and there was a worrying amount of blood on her shirt, she’d also taken a serious hit to the face, but at least she wasn’t concussed. Richie and Seth sit on either side of her on the couch, while she enthusiastically eats a plate of leftover spaghetti one of them had given her.

“He's my brother, Ben. Is he okay?” Brooke asks between bites, her chin dripping with sauce. She ate like she hadn’t seen a meal in days, and from the looks of her thin wrists, she probably hadn’t. She stops eating, leaving half of it on the plate. Eddie raises an eyebrow but doesn’t ask.

“Yeah, he's just resting, you can see him in a minute. But first can you tell me what happened to you two?” He tried to keep his voice calm, warm even, maybe trying for fatherly, but he felt the opposite. He was fucking terrified about what might come out of this girls mouth. There were only a few things he could think of that would explain their wounds or the amount of blood on their clothes, and none of them were even close to good.

“Some of the older kids cornered me in my room before dinner. They kept accusing me of stealing from them, tore my room apart looking and when they didn't find anything, they started to beat on me. Guess they figured that would make me talk, but it didn’t. Ben tried to help, but they just started to hit him too, and... ” She trails off, eyes leaving his face and moving past him, landing unfocused on the wall behind him. He notices in that moment how much older she was behind the masks she always wore, and he wondered what exactly had happened to this girl to teach her so early how to hide behind the pleasant, passive mask of an ideal child to protect herself. He wondered how hard it was for her to come to him like this, to ask for the help and trust of a strange adult, to let her mask slip even for a moment. He saw the same thing happen to the boys sometimes, Richie more often, when they would look past him and their eyes would harden, aged beyond their years in a split second. Then she snaps back, eyes bright and manic, words tumbling out of her mouth. “They were hitting him so hard and then he stopped moving and I thought he was _dead-_ ”

“Sweetheart he’s fine now. But you gotta tell me what you did. Honesty is policy in this house.” Eddie raises his hand, first three fingers held straight up and his thumb crossed over his palm holding his pinky down, scout’s honor. The boys follow suit.

“I stabbed one of them.” The breath leaves his lungs as she speaks, leaving him winded. He expected something bad, but not this bad, not something that could bring the police to his house. He couldn’t let that happen, not for this kid he barely knew, there was too much at stake. “I didn't know where else to go, I couldn't tell if Ben was breathing but I couldn't take him to the hospital, so I figured if Richie and Seth trust you then you must be one of the good ones, and I just knew you'd help because Richie always says that uncle Eddie is the man with the plan and I really need-”

“Honey, take a deep breath.” He leans forward, holding his hands up to calm her. “I need to know, the kid you stabbed, are they okay?”

“Yeah, it was just a small cut, but it scared them off long enough for us to run.”

“I'll fucking kill them.” Seth says between gritted teeth, starting to stand, but Richie reaches over Brooke and pulls him back down, shaking his head at his brother.

“Watch your mouth!” Eddie doesn’t mean to raise his voice but it slips out anyway, all three of them flinch. He continues in a softer, hopefully more calm tone. “Listen to me, no ones gonna do anything crazy. You two finish your homework while we go finish this chat in the kitchen.” The boys make no attempt to move so Eddie tries again, in a more stern tone. “Now.”

The boys huff and puff at him but they move back to their original places at the coffee table, scribbling into their notebooks.

Inside the kitchen Eddie starts clearing the dishes from the table, placing them in the sink and turning on the water. He gestures for her to come closer and she moves next to him. He hands her a towel and she warily takes it.

“Alright kid, what's your deal?” He speaks as he washes the dishes, scraping the tomato sauce and noodles off into the trash, scrubbing the porcelain clean.

“What?”

“You heard me, what's your deal? Are you some kinda psycho? You gonna start a fire at the prom with your mind?”

“I'm not crazy.” She huffs, cheeks turning red. 

“Then once again, what's your deal? Why stab a kid to stop him from beating on your brother instead of getting an adult? Don’t you have foster parents?”

“You think an adult was going to help?” She laughs, quiet and bitter, taking the plate he offers roughly from his hands. “They don't care what happens between us as long as the police don’t get involved.”

He finishes washing the last dish and hands it to her to dry, while she does he walks over to the pantry and opens it, pulling out the bowl of leftover candy from Halloween that he’d saved for the boys. He offers her the bowl and she stares at him for a moment before quickly grabbing a piece of chocolate and sitting heavily at the table. Eddie sits next to her, tries to keep himself calm while he thinks of what to say next.

After a minute he just goes for it, no use beating around the bush. “I'm only gonna ask you this once, so be honest. Did you steal from those kids?”

“Yes.” She says after a beat, not meeting his gaze. “But I don’t have it anymore.”

“Where is it then?”

“I sold it.”

“Why?”

She looks at him for a minute, obviously deciding if she should trust him or not. She sets her shoulders and takes a breath. “I've been saving money in case we need to run away again, but I don’t want to. I like this house. It takes care of us. It’s nice to us.”

“The house is nice to you?”

“Not every house is nice sir. Some of them are real mean. They like it when the bigger kids pick on us. But not this one. This one protects us. It helped us get away tonight.” She talked about the house the same way Richie did, like it was alive. Except Richie was afraid of it, thought it was evil. She clearly didn’t think or feel the same.

“You know that I’m gonna have to call whoever’s in charge of you two at some point, right?”

“You can’t!” Eddie about jumps out of his skin when she shouts at him. “Please! If Bev finds out she might send us away! They might separate us-“ 

“Calm down! Jesus Christ kid, you’re gonna give yourself a heart attack. We just gotta tell her that you’re both staying here tonight so the pigs don’t come sniffing around for you two.”

“So you’re gonna help us?”

“Not quite sure yet. But I sure as hell ain’t just gonna turn you out onto the street.” He sighs heavily, looking over the girl again. Her blood stained shirt, the gauze on her hands already needing to be changed. “Anyway, I think that's about enough for tonight. You need to sleep, and I need to figure out what to do with you. Go check on your brother, you guys can share the boys bed, I’ll set them up in the living room for tonight.”

“Thank you.” She says, voice so quiet he isn’t even sure she said anything at all.

“Don’t mention it kiddo.” Eddie replies with a shrug. What else was he gonna do? Throw them out? Of course he couldn’t. He had a god damn heart didn’t he? “No, seriously, don’t mention it. If anyone asks you plead the 5th, got it?”

“Loud and clear.” She raises her hand, scouts honor, and he grins at her, she echoes it back at him.

“Before you go, punch in the number for your place. Gotta tie up those loose ends.” He picks up the house phone, holding it out to Brooke, she takes it from him and quickly puts in the numbers, handing it back to him and wandering off in the direction of the boys room.

The phone rings for quite a while before a woman answers with a gruff _what,_ voice annoyed. Eddie introduces himself and the change in her tone is astonishing. She flirts with him, quite obviously, and he turns the charm up to 11, make up some bullshit excuse about how the kids must have come down with something at school and he didn't want them spreading it to another house. Beverly accepts his excuse without hesitation, telling him not to worry, she’d call the school in the morning and to just send them home when they were feeling better. Eddie hangs up with a heavy sigh, now he’d just have to figure out a way to explain the bruises and everything would be dealt with.

In the living room the boys have already set up their own beds, homework sitting on the coffee table waiting for Eddie to check over it. They look up at him with tired, expectant eyes as he enters the room but he waves them off when he glances at the clock. Over an hour past bedtime. Its late, they can talk about it later. He skims quickly through their homework, all the pages were filled out, which was good enough for him.

“Tomorrow, you two are gonna go to school like nothing happened and I’ll take care of your friends. Can you do that? Act casual?”

“Of course.” Richie all but scoffs at him, his attitude growing by the day. Seth nods slowly from his spot on the couch, struggling to keep his eyes open. Richie reaches over and tucks their shared blanket around his brother, and Eddie’s heart clenches when he recognizes it. He’d helped Maria pick out some of the patterns for the squares, had sat with her and watched over the boys while she had painstakingly sewn each one together. He was sure it had burnt up with the rest of the house, yet here it was, the last remaining tangible piece of Maria, wrapped around her sons on Eddie’s couch. He turns off the lights as he leaves the room, quietly so as not to wake Seth who was already fast asleep, Richie close to following him judging by his drooping eyelids. 

On his way to his own bed Eddie peeks into the boys room. Brooke and her brother are curled around each other on the bed, both of them so small they barely take up half of it. He still wasn’t sure how he felt about them, Brooke in particular especially after tonight, but the boys clearly cared about them. And Brooke had that same spark Maria had, that same heart, the same one he sometimes saw glimpses of in the boys. Maybe she could help him teach them how to use it. He sure needed it.

Before he closes the door, he notices a dirty plate sitting on the floor by the bed. Funny, they’d just done the dishes. He picks it up and realizes it was the plate Brooke had been eating from earlier. He shrugs and takes the plate to the kitchen, maybe she liked to eat right before bed, who was he to judge.

-

In the morning, Eddie wakes bright and early to an ever energetic Seth running circles around the house trying to find his other shoe while Richie yells at him for losing it in the first place. Eddie had been trying to get them to keep their shoes by the front door so this stopped happening every damn morning. Richie had picked up the habit easily, but Seth just kicked his off wherever he was.

“Found it!” Another voice chimes in and the events of the night before come crashing back into him. Brooke and her brother showing up bleeding on his doorstep. He still had to figure out a way to explain the bruises and Ben’s wrist, but that could wait. Coffee was calling his name.

The front door slams shut and Eddie decides that’s his cue to get up. He had two other kids to take care of after all. And the coffee wouldn’t brew itself. Best to get it started now.

He finds Brooke in the living room, cleaning up after the boys. She’s trying to fold Maria’s quilt, struggling under the size and weight of it, so he steps in and takes it from her gently. She jumps when he does, freezing for a moment before she notices that it's just him.

“Good morning starshine.” He says nonchalant, folding the blanket quickly and easily. She stares up at him with wide eyes, holding her breath. He smiles warmly at her, trying to ease her anxiety. “How’s Ben doing on this fine morning?”

“He’s still sleeping.” Brooke says, smiling back at him apprehensively. Her bruises weren’t as bad as he thought they’d be, just the one on her nose but that could be explained easily, maybe even in the same excuse as Ben’s wrist. Beverly clearly had a thing for him, she’d probably believe whatever he told her. “He sleeps a lot.” She continues, as if she needed to explain, her words coming out quickly. “But I can wake him up if you want us to go-”

“Let him sleep, he deserves it.” Eddie cuts her off, sensing a manic ramble on the horizon like the one from last night. Richie did the same thing, he’d get some crazy idea in his head and it would start spilling out of his mouth in tidal waves until you cut him off and set him straight. “How about we get breakfast started for him when he wakes up, how does that sound?”

“Can we make waffles? They’re his favorite.”

“I’ll do you one better.” Eddie leads her into the kitchen, slowly opening a cupboard for dramatic effect before pulling out a bag with a flourish and dropping it into her hands. “We can make _chocolate chip_ waffles.” She grins up at him and claps her hands excitedly. For the first time in the two days he’d known her, she looks like a kid, just a kid. No hint of anything in her eyes, no apprehension or uncertainty, just the boundless energy and wonder of a child. And all it took was the promise of chocolate.

“Ben’s gonna be so happy!” She skips in circles around the kitchen, singing nonsense to herself while Eddie grabs the box of mix from the cupboard and the eggs and milk from the fridge. Brooke insists on breaking the eggs and stirring the mix, which she does a pretty decent job of to his surprise.

When they’re done cooking Brooke runs off to get her brother while Eddie sets the table. She comes back a few minutes later, dragging an obviously half asleep Ben with her. She has her hands over his eyes and she drops them when they enter the kitchen, gesturing towards the food with an exaggerated _tada!_ The kid had a flair for the dramatic, he’d give her that.

Ben blinks at them for a moment, looking around the kitchen warily, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He slowly takes a seat at the table, eyes set on the food in front of him but he doesn’t touch it. Brooke sits next to him, elbowing him gently and whispering something Eddie can’t quite hear. Ben picks up his fork, but still doesn’t start eating until Brooke does, slowly eating his food while Brooke shovels it into her mouth so fast Eddies worried she might choke.

“Mornin’ kiddo, how’s your wrist doing?” Eddie says in a warm quiet voice. Brooke had warned him that Ben was shy, or as she put it _crazy shy_ , so he tried to project a cool and calm energy.

“Hurts a little.” Ben whispers between bites of food that were slowly getting faster as his hunger outgrew his apprehension.

“It’s okay Ben.” Brooke says to her brother, putting her small hand on his shoulder. “He’s gonna help us. Aren’t you?”

“Yeah kid,” Eddie replies with a reassuring smile. Brooke smiles back at him, Ben does too. God damn his soft spot, he should’ve never opened the door. Now he had two more kids to look after. “I’ll do my best.” _But I can’t promise anything big. Just that as long as you’re here you’ll have a warm meal and a clean bed._ He thinks but doesn’t say. He can’t break their little hearts, not right now. 

As they sit there, sucking down the waffles he’d made so fast he regrets not going with his instinct to make a double batch, he decides that there had to be a way to help them without it coming back to bite him in the ass. They deserve hope, even if it ended up being false. They deserve chocolate chip waffles and a warm, clean bed and an adult they could trust. They deserve a place where they could let their walls down and just be kids. Maybe helping them could be as simple as giving them that place for as long as he could. Maybe it could be as simple as opening his home to two more lost and broken children and trying to nurture the spark of light inside of them.

Eddie knows that if Maria were here she would tell him that he was doing the right thing. And honestly? That’s enough for him. Will always be enough for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jess if you ever see this which i very much doubt you will i'm sorry for the bastardized version of ben. i just couldn't abandon my boy


	3. these voices won't leave me alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ray had always joked that Richie was born with a leak in him, and whatever marbles he started with were just slowly falling out as time went by, and when he was empty, well, that would be it. Eddie didn’t want to believe it, but sometimes he thought Ray might have been right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unbeta'd so any mistakes are mine

The day that Eddie had picked the boys up from the foster home Richie had talked nonstop about the house itself, said that it had been talking to him, that it was trying to tell him something, but he couldn’t remember what it was. That itself didn’t concern Eddie, Richie had always heard things the rest of them didn’t. Even when he was little, he would sometimes stop in his tracks and stare off into space, mumbling to himself. Other times he would sit and talk to the air next to him like there was something there. But he refused to tell them anything about who he was talking to, when they asked him about it he would just stare at them like they were the ones mumbling nonsense. They had him checked out when it first started happening and the doctor had said it was normal, probably just an imaginary friend, he’d grow out of it eventually. What concerned Eddie was that he didn’t, not really.

Even after almost 2 years of living with him, Richie would still sometimes stop dead in his tracks and stare off into space, like he was listening very intently to what someone only he could hear had to say. He would tell Eddie pieces of what he’d heard, the secret ramblings of whatever was talking to him in those moments. Richie rarely remembered what he heard, what he told Eddie, he would sometimes get mad, defensive even, when Eddie tried to ask him about certain things he had said. So Eddie stopped asking and started remembering just in case they ended up actually meaning something beyond the ramblings of a traumatized kid who might be a bit touched in the head. Ray had always joked that Richie was born with a leak in him, and whatever marbles he started with were just slowly falling out as time went by, and when he was empty, well, that would be it. Eddie didn’t want to believe it, but sometimes he thought Ray might have been right. He didn’t know what he’d do if he ended up with a little Michael Myers on his hands, his plate was pretty damn full already, and he was pretty sure that Seth wouldn’t cut it as the final girl if it came down to the wire. Brooke, maybe, but that was only if she stuck around long enough, he knew how the system worked, how unlikely it was that they would stay in the same house for long and it had already been years.

When Richie had first started talking to himself, it just was small inane things, creepy sure, but nothing actually worrying. One night in the middle of a downpour, Richie walked over to the window and stared out of it with a curious look in his eye, almost like he saw something in the rain, whispering in a sad voice,  _ it sounds different, the water changes the song.  _ And once as they drove past a house a few blocks over where a young girl and her father played in the front yard he pointed at the girl and said in an eerily calm voice that made the hair on the back of Eddie’s neck stand up,  _ tonight she will lose her first tooth, she’s going to try to catch the tooth fairy, but she’ll only find her mother standing next to her bed, a quarter in one hand, her tooth in the other.  _ So, yeah, creepy, but not that bad. Kids say crazy shit, hell there’s a very successful tv show that proves this exact point, Eddie tries almost successfully to convince himself.

But as Richie got older he started to sleepwalk, and the things he said started to get darker. Seth had found him in the yard one night, staring at the fence like it held the secrets to the universe, whispering over and over to himself, _ one by one they follow me, laughing, drowning, into the sea. _ And there were nights where Eddie would wake up to find Richie standing over his bed pointing at the corner, always the same corner even though there was never anything there, whispering in a cold voice,  _ the cracks grow wider day by day and soon something will begin to seep through. _

Still, Eddie writes it off, Richie would grow out of it, he almost manages to convince himself, it’s not like he’s Damien or anything, he’s just a wacky kid. Besides, Brooke used to talk to the walls sometimes too, she had thought the house was alive, and she grew out of it real quick. It was just a phase, one of those little quirks kids have.

But then a few days after Richie’s 13th birthday, Seth wakes Eddie up in a panic because Richie wasn’t in the house or the yard that Eddie decides enough is enough, he’d put god damn bars on the windows if it meant keeping that kid inside at night. It takes them over an hour to find him, almost a mile away, standing on the side of the road staring up at the moon like he was trying to will it down to earth,  _ she has such beautiful sad eyes, the kind you want to drown yourself in,  _ Richie says with a sad sigh when Eddie walks up to him.

After that night, Eddie installs new locks on all the doors and windows, puts gates up around the house, Seth even rigs up a booby trap that sets off an alarm in Eddie’s room when their door is opened after bedtime. They all maintain a strict sleep schedule, no tv before bed, anything sharp is locked up at night, the floors are to be kept clear of clutter. Even starts to debate on taking Richie to see a shrink, but he worries that might end with Richie locked in a padded room, so that debate ends quickly. Thankfully before he has to seriously consider dragging Richie kicking and screaming to the nearest Psychiatrist, Eddies other ideas seem to work.

Over the course of the next year, Richie starts to sleepwalk less and less, until months go by without Eddie waking in a cold sweat to find his nephew standing over him whispering shit like he was one of those freaky kids from The Village Of The Damned. Maybe that’s what the problem was, maybe he had a deformed twin floating in a tank somewhere and that’s who he was always talking to. Eddie doubted it, but fuck if he knew at this point. The only thing he cared about was that it had stopped.

Finally, a few weeks after Richie’s 14th birthday, they could officially say that he had grown out of it. Except, Eddie still caught him drifting off during the day sometimes, and there were nights that Richie would wake screaming from nightmares he could never remember, and Seth told him that Richie had also started talking in his sleep and the things he said were, in Seth’s words, like insanely creepy _. _ One night, soon after Seth tells him, he hears voices through the boy’s door in the middle of the night on his way to the bathroom. Faintly through the thin wood, he heard Richie mumbling to himself,  _ she’s waiting, she’s always been waiting. _

Eddie shakes it off, at least he wasn’t talking to ghosts on the side of the road. At least he was here, safe if his bed, Eddie didn’t care who Richie talked to when he slipped away as long as he didn’t get himself killed in the process.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> how many chapters are gonna be in eddies pov and how many movie references am i gonna shove into them? stay tuned to find out


	4. the girl with the red ribbon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I hate George Clooney. I mean, he’s not even an actor,” Richie says with a heavy sigh as the opening credits start to roll. ”He just does the same cheesy move every time. Looks down, then looks back up squinting underneath his eyebrows. And everyone’s buying it. I don’t get it.”
> 
> “He’s not that bad. I like him, he’s cool.” Seth says, brushing Richie off and focusing on the movie. "I wanna be cool like that when I grow up."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unbeta'd so any mistakes are mine

On Seth’s 13th birthday Eddie lets him invite over some friends from school and they throw a small party. Eddie even gets a pinata, which Seth pretends to hate, but they all see the smile on his face as he savagely wacks the poor donkey into pieces all over the yard. After they’d all eaten their fill of candy and the handful of his friends had gone home, Eddie ushers the remaining children into the living room for their sleepover and wanders off to his room.

Seth excitedly puts on the new movie that he had gotten as a present from one of his school-friends, chattering up a storm while he did. Batman was his newest favorite superhero, and he’d had begged Eddie to take him to see Batman & Robin when it was in theaters, but Eddie had been tapped at the time, had to leave town to work, and by the time he came back it wasn’t playing anymore. So now they had to settle for watching the movie on the small tv in the living room, but Seth was happy anyway.

“I hate George Clooney. I mean, he’s not even an actor,” Richie says with a heavy sigh as the opening credits start to roll. ”He just does the same cheesy move every time. Looks down, then looks back up squinting underneath his eyebrows. And everyone’s buying it. I don’t get it.”

“He’s not that bad. I like him, he’s cool.” Seth says, brushing Richie off and focusing on the movie.

“He was good in The Facts Of Life.” Ben chimes in from his spot next to Brooke on the couch, she hums in agreement with him quickly swallowing her mouthful of cake to speak up.

“Yeah, who are you gonna hate on next? Arnold? What has he done besides bring you joy?”

“Clooney’s just so in love with himself and it shows in his acting. I can’t stand him.” Richie says, voice annoyed and slightly defensive, shooting Brooke a dirty glance. “Besides that, I can’t believe you’d use Arnold as an example. He’s done  _ plenty _ wrong. Kindergarten Cop for example, was a disgrace not only to-”

“Kindergarten Cop was a masterpiece in film making and you will not slander it in my presence!” Seth shouts in a voice obviously meant to be mocking Richie, shaking his finger in the air and puffing out his chest. “It changed the way we view films today! Without it, we would not have such quality films as Home Alone, or the lesser known Home Alone 2, or the even more rare, Home Alone 3, which didn’t even have a theatrical release...” Seth tapers off, going back to eating his cake. Richie frowns deeply but doesn’t say anything else, just leans back and burrows as deep as he can into his corner of the couch. For a minute Brooke feels guilty about teasing him, but he did it to her plenty, and it was only fair that she give what she got. He was a big boy, he’d get over it eventually.

“Then you don’t have to watch, but we’re going to. Aren’t we guys?” Seth says with a nod in the twins' direction. They nod at him almost in unison, Brooke bumps Ben’s shoulder with her own and they share a grin, tapping their cake forks together. Most of them turn back to the movie screen, but when Brooke glances in his direction, Richie has his eyes closed tightly and his arms crossed over his chest. Once again, she feels a tinge of guilt, but she brushes it off and focuses her attention back on the movie.

-

By the time Barbara gets her own suit Ben had already gone off to bed, and Richie had long since fallen asleep on his end of the couch. Only Brooke and Seth are left, sitting side by side on the edge of their seats, enthralled by the movie. Seth loved Batman, thought he was the  _ coolest dude ever _ . Brooke said she loved Batgirl, but she really liked Poison Ivy. She thought that it would be amazing to have her powers, to be able to control plants and men alike. She would use her power differently though, she would use it to help. She would grow food for people who were hungry, flowers for people who were sad. She would change the minds of troubled men and she would stop the bad ones. She would-

Richies sudden shrill, panicked screams shock her out of her thoughts. Seth acts quickly as Richie's screams start to slowly taper off and his eyes fly open. He shuts off the tv, taking his brother’s trembling hands gently in his own steady ones. “Hey, you're okay buddy. Just breathe. You’re awake now.”

Sitting awkwardly on the other end of the couch, Brooke watches Seth dote over his older brother, brushing back his hair and cradling his face. She wondered idly if that’s what her and Ben looked like to other people, when she soothed him awake from nightmares or when he did the same for her. She shifts, suddenly uncomfortable and the couch creaks beneath her slight weight.

Seth turns his head quickly to the side at the sound, glancing at her briefly with a startled expression like he’d forgotten she was there before looking back at his brother. He mutters something she can't hear and doesn't turn back to her. They stay like that for a moment, the air tense and oppressive, something thick and tangible, Brooke swears if she reached up she would be able to move through it, like invisible tar filling the air between them. She feels out of place suddenly, like she's witnessing something sacred, something private, something no one else is supposed to see. But she had shown them the dark parts of her over the years, hadn't she? She had shown them pieces of the beast she kept hidden beneath her skin, the fire burning just under the surface, she had shown them parts of her she hadn't even shown Ben because she had thought that they understood, that she had seen glimpses of their own beasts and their own fires, and that made them something more than family. But what if she had been wrong? What if by watching them now in this private moment she had overstepped some kind of unspoken boundary? But Richie was in trouble, and none of that mattered, none of her stupid feelings or worries mattered if she could help him, so she takes the plunge.

“Can I help?” She asks, keeping her voice small and quiet, but still it startles both her and Seth in the silence of the room. “I mean, is there something I could do?” Seth turns to look at her, his brow furrowed as he looks her over, taking in her wild hair and her wide eyes, her mask pulled as far back as it can go without consequences.

“Yeah,” He says after a few seconds, the tension slowly easing from his shoulders. “You just gotta talk him down. Tell him a story or something. I’ll go make some hot chocolate, it always helps.” He stands, and with a soft pat to Richie’s knee, he leaves the room. Brooke can hear him around in the kitchen and slides over to sit next to Richie. She slowly places her hand on top of his and starts to tell him a story her mother had told her years and years ago. Before the fire, before even the idea of the fire, before her stepfather had started slinking into her room like a monster made of stolen breathes with hands big enough to wrap around her throat twice.

“Once upon a time, there was a man and a woman who were very much in love. They had grown together and their whole lives the woman had worn a red ribbon around her neck. Each year since the day they met, like clockwork, the man asked the woman,  _ why, my dearest, do you wear your ribbon? _ And each year, she replied,  _ someday, my love, I shall tell you, but this is not that day. _ The man accepted her answer every time, for he loved her and he trusted her to tell him when she was ready.” Brooke pauses, gently tightening her grip on his hand, tears suddenly threatening to spring to the surface as she spoke. She could hear her mother’s voice in her head, could still smell the perfume she always wore. It was moments like this where she would miss her mother terribly, even after everything she was still just a kid, and she still had moments where she wanted her mother more than anything else in the world. But her mother was nothing now but a pile of ash and bitter memories that made her mouth go dry when she thought too long about them. So she doesn’t. She pushes the memories into the back of her mind, locking them into a box and burying it as deep as they would go. The feelings would stay there, buried away, until another moment like this one, where they would rush to the surface and blind her with their intensity, but that was fine with her because next time she would do exactly the same thing, an eternal rinse and repeat. It had worked for her so far and she had learned early on not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

After a few moments of slightly awkward silence she continues. “Time steadily passed, and the love between them continued to grow. They got married, had two beautiful children and lived happy lives but still, every year the man asked, the woman refused, and he continued to trust in her anyway. They started nearing the ends of their lives, and one dark stormy night, as the woman lay in what was soon to be her deathbed, the man asked one final time,  _ why, my darling, do you wear your ribbon? _ She beckoned him closer, taking his hand in her own, and together they gently pulled on the end of her ribbon.” Brooke pauses for a moment, taking a breath to center herself. In the kitchen, she can hear Seth moving around, the smell wafting into the living room reminding her that they weren’t alone. None of them were. She would always have Ben, and the boys would always have each other. And that was such an amazing thing.

Richie returns her grip on his hand for a moment so brief she could almost convince herself it never happened at all. Glancing away from where their hands lie intertwined, she looks up to see him watching her with suspiciously soft eyes. Her heart starts to beat a little too fast and shes suddenly too aware of their hands touching, then he smiles at her and its like her heart decides  _ fuck it, I’m out, _ and jumps as far up her throat as it can. She somehow manages to smile back at him.

“What happened next?” Richie asks her in a soft voice, almost like he didn’t quite trust his words, squeezing her hand gently. The frantic beating of her heart only gets worse when he does, and it takes her a moment to choke down the lump in her throat and get the words out.

“After the ribbon had fallen away, her head tumbled from her neck to the floor and she died, right there in his arms.” She finally manages after a moment and another reassuring squeeze from Richie. She’s afraid to look up at him, of what she’d see in his eyes, if he knew what she meant or if she even knew what she meant. Maybe it was just a story, but it had always felt like more, like her mom had told it to her all those times for a reason.

“That's a terrible story.” He scoffs at her, shaking his head.

“I don’t think so.” She replies, keeping her voice quiet, almost a whisper. “I think it’s amazing that one person could love someone else that much.”

Richie looks at her again, with those too soft eyes, and she can’t decide if she likes it or not. She’s used to him being rough and hard, mean even. She liked that he was kind of an asshole because she was too, it was the easiest person to be. It worked for them. But this soft, warm, almost kind Richie? She didn’t know who to be around him. The way he was looking at her made her heart start racing all over again, waves of feelings she didn’t quite have names for yet washing over her. All she knew was that she didn’t want him to let go of her hand.

After a while, Richie hums softly to himself and closes his eyes, lying his head back onto the edge of the couch, still keeping his grip on her hand. For a moment, she thinks about letting go herself, worrying that maybe he was only holding on for her benefit, but she bails off that train of thought as quickly as she can. Richie didn’t really like to be touched by anyone but Seth, not even Eddie, but she did, she craved it, she just never knew how to ask for it. And right now, she could have what she wanted, and he seemed to want it too, or maybe she was just a placeholder until Seth got back, either way she would take what she could get. If she had learned anything in her life, it was to greedily grab onto the small moments, the ones that she would use to keep her warm on the bad nights.

“Are you alright?” She asks after awhile, the silence finally getting the best of her. Richie turns his head towards her without picking it up, scrunching his eyebrows together and looking at her curiously.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He says with a small shrug, like he hadn’t just woken up screaming not even 5 minutes ago. “Are you?”

“Why wouldn't I be?”

“It's pretty scary, or well, Seth always says it's scary. He thinks that one of these days I’m just not gonna wake up.”

“Is it really that bad?”

“No, Seth just blows everything out of proportion. Just nightmares.”

“Didn’t sound like it was just a nightmare.” She says softly, still afraid of breaking whatever was happening between them. “You know, there was a kid who lived at Bev’s for awhile who did the same thing. He would wake up screaming bloody murder but he wouldn’t talk about it, just kept brushing us all off and saying it wasn’t a big deal.”

“What happened to him?”

“Don’t know. He wasn’t there very long, on account of the screaming nightmares I’m assuming.” She teases him, hoping to get a piece of the Richie she knew back, but it doesn’t work. He just frowns at her slightly and blinks slowly. He keeps looking at her with those soft eyes, watching her like he was trying to read her, like he was trying to pull back her cover and see her hidden pages. She didn’t like it. There was a reason there were locks on her cover, that her pages were hidden behind them. If she wanted him to see, she would show him. She sits up straight and pulls her mask back down as far as it would go, but it doesn’t even phase Richie, who just keeps watching her with something almost kind in his eyes.

They sit together in a slightly awkward silence until Seth comes back into the room with mugs in his hands full of steaming hot chocolate. Richie drops her hand quickly when he spots Seth and grabs a mug from him, Brooke follows suit, trying still to ignore the beating of her heart, the warmth of the mug thankfully sapping the memory of the heat of Richies palm against hers. While Seth changes the movie in the VCR she quickly scoots back over to the opposite end of the couch from Richie, careful not to spill her hot chocolate. Richie doesn’t even so much as look at her. She isn’t about to complain, whatever had happened between them was weird. He’d never been that nice to her, that soft, that open, not once in the years they had known each other. She didn’t know if she liked the way he looked at her, but she did like the way his hand felt against hers, the way she could almost feel his heartbeat in his palm, reminding her that they were both still here.

Seth changes the tape in the VCR without a word, and they all settle in to watch the movie that had long since been one of Richie’s favorites. It wasn’t the first time they’d watched it, and it wouldn’t be the last, and as the opening credits of My Neighbor Totoro filled the room and any evidence of earlier began to dissipate, so did the feelings from earlier, and pretty soon Brooke can almost convince herself that it never happened at all.


	5. white lies, dark secrets, and scandalous hookups

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not for the first time, she thinks about why they call it butterflies in your stomach. To her it felt more like a pit of snakes, deep and dark and slithering, where all the dark secret feelings she’d buried lived.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unbeta'd so any mistakes are mine

When Melanie Johnson had passed out the flyers for her party during last period a few hours earlier, Brooke jumped at the chance. She loved going to parties, especially the ones that the rich kids threw. It was like the rules were different. When you went to a party in the suburbs, you had to keep the noise down, you couldn’t stand on the lawns. But when you went to a party in the good part of town you could do whatever you wanted. Jason Stewart from her gym class threw a recliner off of Melanie’s deck last year at the annual Start of Summer Bash and he didn’t even get a slap on the wrist.

Usually, it was just Brooke and Seth at the parties. Everyone knew them so they were always invited. Seth was insanely popular considering he wasn’t involved in any kind of after school activities, the boy was just good at working a room. Brooke was popular too, she could talk to anyone about anything and for some reason people liked talking to her about their issues, at some point she’d gained a reputation as a problem solver and she was starting to get bombarded at school. She was honestly considering setting up a booth like Lucy from Peanuts, at least then she’d get something out of it besides a headache. Her prices would be much higher though.

Once in a blue moon they managed to drag Richie along with them to one of the better parties, bitching and moaning the whole time, but with them nonetheless. He would usually last a few hours before he took off, using his homework as an excuse, which it was. Richie and Ben were both taking the same classes, AP this and college-level that, and as a result, they had a frankly insane amount of homework to do on a nightly basis. So their free time was mostly spent studying together at Eddie’s, their heads crammed into books that made Brooke’s head hurt when she tried to read over their shoulders.

Ben was serious about college, much more serious than Richie who would just shrug when asked where he was thinking about applying. Ben had started sending in his applications as soon as possible, even gone as far as to apply for early acceptance into Stanford’s art program. He was graduating a year early, and after that he wouldn’t be stuck here in bumfuck Kansas anymore. Wouldn’t be stuck with her. She’d always felt like somehow, someway, she was holding him back. Keeping him from being who he needed to be, from doing some incredible thing. He was kind and smart and selfless, all the things that she pretended to be, that she wanted to be, but wasn’t. She didn’t want him to leave, she wanted to tie him up and lock him away somewhere close by so he could never ever leave her, but she knew that he would when the time came. He would leave her and this place and go on to become his own person without her to hold him back anymore. And nothing she did short of the extreme would stop him. So she does what she does best, and buries the thoughts and the feelings as deeply as they could go, and paints a smile across her face. She’d deal with it when the day came. 

On their way home from school that day, Seth chattered nonstop about the party. The blonde girl from his English class was gonna be there and so was the one with the kickass smile he’d been talking about at dinner earlier that week _ , brother you gotta be there, its wall to wall babes, you could lose yourself in the crowd and die happy. _ Richie sighed and huffed and groaned but eventually agreed when Brooke started nagging him too. 

When they finally get home, Richie tries to bail on them but changes his mind as soon as they hear Eddie in the kitchen, humming that damn song he always sang when he had found a new recipe that he was just dying to make them try. Once it had been rocky mountain oysters which he heard about on his favorite morning radio show, or there was that time the year before when he’d found an old cookbook from the ’50s and he decided to make one of everything inside of it. After the 6th jello-based protein dish, all four of them started staying late at school, and when that stopped working, the potted plants in the kitchen sure started to die fast. There was a fine line between being an adventurous chef and being arrested for accidental manslaughter and Eddie hadn’t quite learned where to stand yet.

They change quickly, trying to avoid eating whatever Eddie had cooked up this time, but not quickly enough. He catches them on their way out the door, holding out a spoon full of what appeared to be tomato sauce, but smelled suspiciously of seafood. Brooke stands ready to act as the royal poison tester, but Richie grabs her arm before she can volunteer, pulling her out the door and closing it behind them, leaving Seth behind as the tribute.

Brooke shoots Richie a dirty glance as he pulls her down the porch steps and onto the wet grass. It had rained earlier, and the heels of her boots sank into the mud. She stumbles a bit, and he reaches out, grabbing her by the shoulders and steadying her. She expects him to let go but he doesn’t, just shrugs at her, still holding onto her gently. “Hey, the old man puts his heart and soul into everything he makes, someones gotta try it.”

“Why didn’t you do it then?” She asks him, fighting the urge to raise her hands up and lay them over his own. Whatever they were, it was a night time thing, one of those secret moments that only exists after the sun goes down, when you can do and say things that feel different in the light of day. Like this, even the simplest touch, she didn’t know how to respond to it, what would be crossing a line they had never drawn, and what would be welcome.

“Who do you think eats all of his crazy shit while you two are off galavanting around town?” He smirks, the dimple in his cheek almost taunting her as he tilts his head and leans a bit closer to her. Their eyes meet for a moment, and what she sees makes her mouth go dry and her heart start to race. Maybe inviting him was a bad idea. She hated it when he was like this, when he went out of his way to blur the lines and he would look at her with too soft eyes that made her feel like maybe they could be together all the time, even during the day. She looks away from him quickly, laughing a touch too loudly.

“Galavanting? Okay, grandpa.” She says, keeping her voice light and joking, even as her heart made its steady climb up her throat. “Don’t be so bitter, we invite you to every sock hop and out for every chocolate malt, you’re the one who decides to stay home.”

“I prefer strawberry malts.” His face is serious, but his eyes are still soft, his hands still on her shoulders, one of his thumbs brushes her neck, and she hopes he can’t feel how fast her heart is racing.

“Never would have taken you for a strawberry kind of guy.” Not for the first time, she thinks about why they call it butterflies in your stomach. To her it felt more like a pit of snakes, deep and dark and slithering, where all the dark secret feelings she’d buried lived. She didn’t like feeling like that, but she did like Richie, she liked talking to him, touching him, just being around him, even if he opened the pit, he also made her feel warm and safe. Her mom had always said that love made you stupid and blind and it never did no one not one bit of good. And her mother would know, every man she had ever loved had been a loser or a monster. She had tragedy in her, got it from her mom the same way she got her hair, through her blood. She loved like her too, all fire and heat and too too much, and she was afraid of that. What if by loving someone else, she’d burn herself out? Or the other person?

“I like things that are red.” He leans forward, closing his eyes, and she knows that she should too, that’s how you’re supposed to kiss, but the light of the setting sun filtering through the tree above them cast his face in rays of reds and oranges, and she can’t stop thinking about the tragedy inside of her, the dark things she hid so deep sometimes she couldn’t find them again. What if loving Richie and maybe even being loved by him opened the pit too far and all of those terrible things came pouring out? What if he fell in? What if any of a thousand horrible things happened, and they all branched out from this moment when she decided to let night time things out into the light? She spirals, worrying herself stupid, but thankfully not for long, before they can cross the ever blurry line, the front door bursts open behind her and Richie jumps back from her so quickly she’s surprised he doesn’t end up on his ass in the mud.

“Richie you’re such a dick!” Seth huffs, rushing out the front door, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. “I’m never gonna get the taste out of my mouth.”

“I’ve taken plenty of metaphorical food bullets for you, it’s only fair that you get hit eventually.” Richies cheeks are red to the tips of his ears, but he jokes with his brother like nothing had happened. The boys walk ahead, down the pathway and out the gate, bickering between themselves. Brooke watches them for a minute, breathing in the chilly air, waiting for the pit to close enough for her to move without worrying about falling in.

-

By the time they finally make it to Melanie’s the party is in full swing. Melanie’s father was a politician, and her mother followed him everywhere. He was currently campaigning for a seat in some building or something, which meant that both of them were traveling the state and wouldn't be home for weeks, so this was sure to be just the first party of many. Seth split away from them without a word as soon as they entered the house, zeroing in on a pretty girl with long blonde hair who was sitting alone on a couch in one of the many living rooms, looking bored. Richie scoffs at his brother, Brooke just laughs, nudging Richie’s shoulder gently with her own, holding out her hand to him. He rolls his eyes at her, but he still takes it, which she counts as a win. She drags him off towards the kitchen in search of the promised booze, a broad grin on her face. It was night now, and she didn’t have to worry about her daytime feelings anymore.

Together they grab matching red solo cups, filling them with the bitter punch that had been set out. Whoever had mixed it put way too much alcohol and it burns her throat unpleasantly when she takes her first sip. Richie made a sour face that makes her cheeks feel hot when he sips his, coughing and frowning deeply. She laughs, kissing him on the cheek quickly before she can think better of it. He gives her a curious look, opens his mouth to say something, but she grabs his hand again and drags him off with her into the party, the loud music and the abundance of other people stopping any possibility of a conversation, at least a private one, in its tracks.

As they make their way through the party, Brooke stops every chance she gets to chat with someone she knows from school, dropping Richie’s hand while talking mindlessly with them about classes and teachers and other students. A few of them shoot her a curious glance when they notice Richie instead of Seth standing with her, but she shuts them down quickly enough, daring them to say something with a sharp smile. Thankfully none of them take the bait, they’d learned better by now. If it wasn’t her, it would be Seth and he wasn’t quite so nice about it.

-

Every time Brooke drops his hand, Richie starts to think of new reasons why. Maybe her hand was getting sweaty, maybe she had a cramp, maybe she was embarrassed, even ashamed to be seen with him. That made the most sense to him. She was decently popular at school, and he most definitely wasn’t. Sure he had a few friends, but not nearly as many as Brooke and Seth seemed to have. It didn’t bother him though, he liked his friends, he liked that he didn’t have to pretend to be someone else around them the way Brooke seemed to have to be.

It has always made him nervous, how easily she slipped into different personas. He was never sure who she really was underneath it all, if the girl who held his hand and sang to him when he woke up from nightmares was the same as the girl who would sometimes pretend like she didn’t even know him in public.

But still, he liked her. He had always felt like maybe there was something she understood about the world that he didn’t and that’s why she was so good at dealing with people, why she didn’t let herself get dragged underneath the darkness the same way he always seemed too. He wanted somehow to learn that from her, how to blend into a crowd and be who he needed to be to fit in. It would make some things easier.

It wasn’t until the year before that he realized that he maybe more than just liked her. Right after Eddie had given him the keys to the truck for his 16th birthday, Richie had taken Brooke to the small theater in town that didn’t ID and they saw Fight Club, which he had been looking forward to for months. Afterward, he drove them out to the small field by the school where the kids at school would sometimes get together and set up a drive-in, and they laid together in the back of the truck and she listened to him ramble about the movie, he’d read the book of course, he’d read every book the author had written, and he had a lot of very intense feelings about the concept of Tyler Durden as a whole. Eventually, they both fell asleep under the stars, and when he woke up to the sun in his face she was pressed against his side and he felt almost content for the first time in his life, and even deeper beneath that, he felt a warmth growing inside of him. But then she woke up and ushered them home, worrying aloud about how much trouble they would be in, and he started doing everything in his power to ignore the warmth and the feelings, putting out the small bursts of fire as soon as they ignite, but it wasn't enough.

He’d even tried to move on, started dating Mary from his English class who had warm eyes and a kind smile, but they didn’t last long. She was too nice, too sugary sweet, couldn’t take the rough parts of him, and after a while spending time with her just made his teeth hurt, so he moved on from her too. And then he was just back at square one, pining after Brooke in a way he hoped wasn’t too obvious, resigning himself to the fact that his crush was one-sided.

Then they moved into the new house at the beginning of the summer and Richie finally got his own room. And she crawled into his bed late that first night and kissed him for the first time and he got what he wanted. Almost every night that summer, she crept into his bed like a thief and stole whatever hope he ever had of moving on. After school started, her visits had started becoming less frequent, until it had been weeks since he had woken up to her pulling back his blankets and pressing her cold toes into his back and her soft lips against his face. They never once talked about it, whatever it was. Talking about it would make it real, he knew that better than anyone, talking about it meant they would have to acknowledge it, it meant they would have to open themselves up, let down the walls they had both spent their entire lives building. And neither of them were that brave. But he was okay with that, with not talking about it, as long as it didn’t stop, as long as whatever was between them didn’t change. Even if there were moments, like earlier on the lawn, when he felt like maybe he wanted them to.

Still, he starts to get angry with her around the fifth time she drops his hand, his cheeks burning with shame and rage and other feelings he wasn’t ready to think about quite yet. When she tries to grab his hand again he shakes her off, putting his free hand roughly into his pocket, the other tightly clenching his now-empty plastic cup. Brooke looks at him with hurt written plainly across her face for a moment before she pulls herself together and frowns at him, grabbing his shoulders and shoving him ahead of her into one of the bedrooms, shooing out the sheepish couple they find half-clothed inside.

“What crawled up your ass and died?” She asks as soon as she shuts the door behind her, making sure to lock it, turning towards him with her arms crossed, an annoyed look on her flushed face. A look he was used to, and frankly, kind of loved most of the time. But not right then. It was actually kind of pissing him off. Not that pissing him off would be hard at that moment, he felt wired, he felt rough, he felt like being mean just for the sake of it.

“I want to go home.” He huffs at her, mimicking her crossed arms and annoyed look. Almost mocking her. She drops her arms and her face softens a bit. That wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted to fight, he wanted to argue, he wanted suddenly to talk about it, the secret thing between them, he wanted to rip her open and see what she truly felt, what she really thought about him. He was tired of the games and the constant walking on eggshells.  _ It would be so much easier _ , he thinks to himself as she stares at him with too soft eyes that made him feel things he wasn’t sure he had names for yet,  _ if I could read minds like I can read a lock. _

“Why? I thought we were having fun.” She asks him in a quiet, confused voice and he wants to grab her by the shoulders and shake her roughly, ask her what she wanted from him. Did she want him to be soft and kind, or hard and mean? He hated these instant changes of hers, they left him shaken and confused, unsure of what to say or what to do, of who she wanted him to be, of who she even was.

“Maybe you were.” He replies, cold and rough, begging her to meet him at his level the way he knew she could, all sharp words and even sharper claws. For a moment it seems like shes going to, but she only sighs, tilting her head and looking at him with something a little too close to pity for his taste.

“Okay.” She replies after a beat, the pity in her eye disappearing so quickly he almost swears he can see the wall slamming back down.

“Really? You’re not even gonna argue?”

“No.” She shrugs half-heartedly. “If you want to go home, we can go home.”

“I don’t-” he stops, trying to gather his thoughts, sitting heavily on the edge of the bed. “What do you want?” He wasn’t talking about leaving anymore, he knew that, and he hoped that she did too. He didn’t know what else to say, his head was swimming between rough and soft, trying to find a balance that would work at this moment.

“I don’t know.” She moves closer as she speaks, stopping just in front of him, raising one of her shoulders in a soft shrug. For a second he swears that he hears the distinct sound of plastic crinkling, but he shakes it off. “Whatever you want.”

“Right now I want you.” The words slip out of his mouth quickly, before he can even think about the consequences. He could blame the alcohol, still singing in his veins, but he doesn’t. This was all him, his ability to say the worst possible thing at any given time. She sucks in a breath and before he can decide on what to say next, the words tumble out of his mouth. “All the time. Not just in secret. I want to go on dates and hold hands and do all the shit we’re supposed to do. I want to be like Ben Braddok and Elaine Robinson, so stupidly in love that they’re willing to sacrifice anything to be together.” He closes his eyes tightly, clenching them shut so hard he sees stars, trying to quiet the fluttering in his chest. “I want to be in love like people are in the movies.”

“Love is nothing like it is in the movies.” Her voice is quiet, almost as quiet as it was that very first night in the yard when he’d first seen the dark thing she hides behind her teeth. He knows that if he looks at her now he would see it, forever present, but only visible in moments like this, when she opened up whatever was inside of her and let the dark things out. “Nothing is.”

“I know that.” Shaking his head he turns back to her, watching her shift awkwardly from one foot to the other, her shoulders tense, like he was asking her for the hardest thing in the world. Which it very well may be to her, he didn’t know, they hadn’t talked about it, but she had to want him too, or else she never would have started this whole thing, she never would have crawled into his bed that first night and kissed him breathless. “But I still want to try. Don’t you?”

“Richie,” she sighs, his name slipping out of her mouth on the exhale. She looks at him for a moment, like she wants to say something sad and heavy, like she’s about to break his heart, but instead, she steps forward, her shoulders softening, crossing the slight distance between them, and presses her lips against his own in a sloppy kiss, too much teeth, the angle all wrong, but he melts into it anyway, grabbing her wrists and moving further back on the bed, clumsily pulling her with him. She lands on her knees, towering over him, using the height to her advantage, tilting his head back and deepening the kiss. She tasted like bad punch and the cigarette they had split on the porch earlier, but also something else, something he had been trying to identify since the first time she had kissed him. He chases the taste, rooting through his mind for what it could be, even as his body keeps moving, his shaking hands gripping the bottom of her dress, inching it up her thighs.

She swats his hands away and presses a hard, searing kiss against his cheek, climbing off the bed. She stares at him for a moment, cheeks flushed and panting, eyes hazy and burning, before she all but rips her purse off her shoulder, dropping it onto the floor with an audible thud, quickly followed by her dress. Brooke stands at the end of the bed, wearing nothing but her mismatched underwear, stockings already rolling down her thighs, and a crooked grin. Until that point, everything they had done had been with the lights off and their clothes on, and he was stunned by the openness of the moment. She was a little too skinny, too willowy, her angles too sharp. She still hadn’t fully grown into her body, but she had time, and it wasn’t like he was done growing yet either. That thought comforted him, that someday she would grow out, filling out the thin parts of her, her angles smoothing out, the same way he would get broader, stronger, less awkward and gangly, all too long limbs and thin shoulders. Maybe, if he played his cards right, they would finish growing together. He liked that idea.

When she steps towards him, he hears the plastic crinkling sound again and notices something sticking out of her left bra cup. When she gets close enough, he points at her chest, raising an eyebrow. “You’ve got a stowaway.”

She looks down and laughs when she sees what he’s talking about, pulling it out of her bra. “I totally forgot.” In her hands she holds a slightly crushed pack of cigarettes, opening it to proudly show him 3 perfectly rolled joints, grinning like a madwoman. This was the Brooke he liked the most, the one with the rough, jagged smile that matched his own, the one with the cracks showing, almost enough for him to climb right in. He grins back at her with the same intensity, their levels finally meeting again.

He watches as she expertly lights one of the joints, taking a few hits to get it started, holding the last one before handing it to him. It wasn’t the first time he had smoked, hell, it wasn’t even the first time they had smoked together, but it was the first time she leaned forward and pressed her lips against his, breathing her hit out into his mouth. 

That night, as they blew smoke into each other’s mouths and kissed on the bed in one of Melanie Johnson’s many guest rooms, he thought he might have finally figured out what her taste was, and as she slid her hand into his pants for the first time he knew he had. She tasted like the very thing that brought them together. Like a fire burning a house to its foundations, like the bitter ash that was left in the air, like rebirth and new beginnings and  _ home.  _ If she was a haunted house, then he wanted to be her ghost, if she was a forest fire, he wanted to be her catalyst, if she was a hurricane, he wanted to be caught in the eye of her storm, content to forever stand there in the midst of her chaos.

-

“What are you thinking about?” Richie asks her later, his voice soft, one of his hands idly playing with her hair where it had fallen out of its braid. It had always been his favorite question,  _ what are you thinking, _ and she knew that he really wanted to know. He wanted to know everything, about other people, about himself, about the world. He was a boy hungry for knowledge, and sometimes it scared her. She was content with not knowing, with there being unspoken mysteries, but not him. He wanted to rip the world open and read its soul like a book, sometimes he got a look in his eyes like he wanted to do the same with her, and sometimes she wanted to let him.

_ Elaine Robinson. _ She wants to say, wants to pull back her cover and show him the words written across her soul, spelling out tragic _ ,  _ mistake _ ,  _ arsonist.  _ That look in her eye as she sat in the back of the bus with the man she had chosen to spend the rest of her life with. That slow shift from happiness to uncertainty. All of the maybes and what-ifs.  _ But she can’t bring herself too, he’s watching her with warm blue eyes that made her heart race all over again, so instead, she closes her eyes, slams her cover closed, and starts singing softly, the sound of her voice filling the room, just barely loud enough to cover the muffled music coming through the walls.

_ Hello, darkness my old friend, I’ve come to talk with you again. _

-

Later that night, well after curfew, Brooke drags them both out of bed, using the threat of Eddie’s wrath to light a fire under Richie when he tries to argue with her. She’d lost her stockings earlier in the heat of the moment, so he tries to help her, wandering about the room and searching half-heartedly, he wasn’t quite ready to go home yet, for this night to be over.

Somewhere near the door he stumbles, tripping over something heavy on the floor. Looking down, he sees her purse sitting by his foot, one of her stockings draped over the top. He reaches down, grabbing the handle of her purse, underestimating the weight of it as he lifts it. Did she have bricks in the damn thing?

“The hell are you smuggling, gold bars?”

“Rich people leave a lot of surprising stuff laying around, but unfortunately no gold bars.” Holding the purse out like it weighed nothing, she turned it over and dumped it out on the bed. It was like what he’d always imagined the bag of holding to be, he wants nothing more than to look inside her small purse and figure out exactly the spell she used to make it so much larger on the inside.

The sheer amount of stuff shocks him for a moment, just how she fit all of that inside of her small bag without anyone noticing, let alone himself who had been standing next to her the entire night, confounds him. He felt stupid, of course she wasn’t embarrassed by him, she had been dragging him around and showing him off since the day they met. That was the thing that he liked most about her, that she wasn’t ashamed of him. Besides Seth, she was the only one. Even Eddie had his moments where he would look at Richie like he was a cuckoo who had fallen into their nest that he still hadn’t learned how to get rid of, but not her. She looked at him with a hundred different emotions, some of which excited and scared him in equal measure, but never with embarrassment.

“Gonna have to start calling you Mary Poppins.” He quips sitting on the edge of the bed, picking through the pile of stolen items she had dumped on the blanket while he goes over the night in his head again, thinking about every time she dropped his hand and where she might have gotten each one, mentally calculating the price she could get for all of the stuff as he does. There were two relatively small bottles of expensive-looking alcohol, small items of jewelry, somewhere around $250 in cash, even a pair of diamond earrings. Just how she had gotten it all, and what she was going to do with it still eluded him, but damn if he wasn’t impressed. Almost enough to apologize for his outburst earlier, but not quite.

“She would heavily disprove of petty theft.” She says around a smile she couldn’t seem to suppress, his favorite one. Crooked and ferocious, like she’d eat him alive given the chance. “But I think she’d still be pretty damn impressed anyway.”

After packing everything back into her purse, they wander back into the party which had started dying down. Just how long they’d actually been there alluded him, they’d spent what seemed like hours moving through the party while Brooke had been pocketing things, and then they were in the bedroom for what felt like even longer. He’d completely lost track of time, all he knew was that it was definitely past curfew, Brookes earlier warnings of Eddie’s wrath suddenly felt more like a promise than a threat.

Before Richie can start to panic Jimmy, the weird biker kid from his gym class that Richie wasn’t entirely sure was even a student anymore, spots them looking around and points them towards the front door. Brooke shoots him an enthusiastic thumbs up and pulls Richie towards the door. 

On the front porch, they find Seth kissing the blonde girl he’d been talking to earlier that night, both of them a little tipsy and much too stoned. Richie pulls them apart, a bit too roughly suddenly very eager to get home, and drags Seth huffing and puffing out of the yard and onto the street towards home. Brooke stays behind for a moment, apologizing to the girl, taking her number down for Seth, which she actually gives him much to Richie’s annoyance. He didn’t like that girl, she was too bubblegum pink and her smile was too plastic, she was like the barbie doll Eddie had gotten Brooke as a christmas present the first year they had known her. Richie and Brooke had torn that doll apart, broken it open to see what was inside, hoping to find something secret, something magical even, but they found nothing but air and more plastic. They took to it with matches, melting it into a puddle in the fire pit in the backyard they couldn’t fully scrape off. For the rest of the winter, and well into the summer, every time they lit a fire it would smell like burning plastic, the memory of their shared disappointment filling the air with toxic smoke. He wondered if that girl would melt the same way that doll had, if the smell of her would haunt them for the months to come.

Seth complains the entire walk back to Eddies, but Richie ignores him, he’s starting to sober up and there's a migraine threatening to surface near his temples. All he wants to do is sleep, but if this migraine blossomed any chances of that would fly out the window.

By the time they get home, Richie’s temples had started to throb, a queasy feeling growing in his stomach. With Seth still mumbling complaints behind him, Richie walks away, making a beeline for his bed like his life depended on it, which in this moment, it did. When he gets into his room the first thing he notices is how god damn  _ hot _ it was, he opens the window a touch too roughly, the old wood creaking and groaning as it slides up the frame. His clothes follow soon after, and he drops unceremoniously on top of his blankets, letting the cold wind rushing through the window brush over his skin, slowly cooling him down.

He’s almost asleep when he hears his door creak open, he’d been expecting it, but still, it startles him awake. Without a word she climbs onto the bed next to him, pressing a cold bottle of water into his hands before pushing him to the side and slipping underneath his blankets. Eventually, after downing half the bottle in one long drink he didn’t even know he needed, he joins her, pressing his cold toes into her back for once.

That night, they fall asleep entwined together in his bed, not worried for the first time about anyone finding them in the morning.

Richie dreams that he’s the star of his own movie, one of the old ones where everyone talked in half-baked metaphors and almost every scene had at least one shot of someone cast dramatically in shadow. He was a private investigator in some dark city, and one day a dame walked into his office with legs just made for the runway and hair that could burn down a house. She’d lost something, she said, but she wasn’t quite sure what it was. It wasn’t until she stepped into the light that he noticed the mask she wore, so perfect he almost didn’t see the seam. Somehow he knows that if he were to peel it back he would find nothing underneath, the absence of anything at all. So he doesn’t.

Brooke dreams of the pit, of the snakes slithering across her skin, the darkness crawling down her throat and taking root inside of her stomach, where she would never be able to pull it out. The pitch-black roots crawling and weaving their way around the inside of her body, around her heart, vines pushing their way out of her mouth, eventually she’s nothing more than just a puppet, the mouthpiece for the dark secret things. It should frighten her, but it doesn’t. Its easier, being a puppet, in so many ways.

-

Eddie shakes Seth awake a little before noon the next day, grinning ear to ear. Seth blinks awake, the hint of a hangover beating behind his eyes.

“You owe me a month's worth of chores.” Eddie says gleefully. Seth groans, forcing himself out of bed. He’d forgotten about the bet they’d made a few months before, after they had caught Richie at dinner one night, staring at Brooke across the table with too soft eyes while she chatted with her brother about school. The only other girl Seth had ever seen Richie look at like that was Mary Palmer the year before, and that hadn’t ended well for any of them, so he was wary at first, but eventually, he warmed to the idea. They’d be good together Seth decided eventually, Richie was the rock, and she was the hard place, they kept each other grounded. Still, he never expected Richie to make a move, let alone Brooke. She’d never seemed interested, sure she was always doting over him and holding his hand, but she did that with everyone.

“You’re full of it.” Seth rolls his eyes, but Eddie’s grin doesn’t fade, he just grabs him by the shoulder and drags him down the hall to Richie’s room, where the door is cracked open slightly. Inside, Seth can see Brooke and his brother curled together on his bed. Both of them looked almost peaceful, it had been years since Seth had seen Richie look like that, and it makes him smile softly. Hopefully, this was a sign of good things to come, of a calmer more centered Richie, who woke up less from nightmares he refused to talk about, who didn’t try to scare off Seth’s girlfriends.

“Told you,” Eddie whispers, slowly shutting the door behind them and ushering them back down the hall. “Now it’s time to pay up, there’s dishes that need washing and a lawn that needs mowing.”

“Someday I’ll learn not to bet against you old man.” Seth says with a sigh, turning and walking back down the hall to his room to change out of his pajamas. He’d lost enough bets to Eddie to know that it was better to get the chores done as early as possible.

“Hopefully not anytime soon,” Eddie says with a wide grin as he passes Seth’s room on his way to the kitchen. “or else nothing around here would ever get done.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> writing any kind of romance without being bitter af is honestly the hardest thing to do, so i hope this comes across as even a little soft lol


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